glad to meet, and we had a hundred questions to put
to each other in a breath.

{cote gauche = left wing, politically}

No. 12 had commenced life a violent republican, and this simply because
he read nothing but republican newspapers; a sufficiently simple
reason, as all know who have heard both sides of any question. Shortly
after I was purchased by poor, dear Adrienne, a young American traveler
had stepped into the magasin, and with the recklessness that
distinguishes the expenditures of his countrymen, swept off half a
dozen of the family at one purchase. Accident gave him the liberal end
of the piece, a circumstance to which he never would have assented had
he known the fact, for being an attache of the legation of his own
country, he was ex officio aristocratic. My brother amused me
exceedingly with his account of the indignation he felt at finding
himself in a very hot-bed of monarchical opinions, in the set at the
American legation. What rendered these diplomates so much the more
aristocratic, was the novelty of the thing, scarcely one of them having
been accustomed to society at home. After passing a few months in such
company, my brother's boss, who was a mere traveling diplomatist, came
home and began to run a brilliant career in the circles of New York, on
the faith of a European reputation. Alas! there is in
pocket-handkerchief nature a disposition to act by contraries. The
"more you call, the more I won't come" principle was active in poor No.
12's mind, and he had not been a month in New York society, before he
came out an ultra monarchist. New York society has more than one of
these sudden political conversions to answer for. It is such a thorough
development of the democratic principle, that the faith of few
believers is found strong enough to withstand it. Every body knows how
much a prospect varies by position. Thus, you shall stand on the
aristocratic side of a room filled with company, and every thing will
present a vulgar and democratic appearance; or, vice versa, you shall
occupy a place among the oi polloi, and all is aristocratic, exclusive,
and offensive. So it had proved with my unfortunate kinsman. All his
notions had changed; instead of finding the perfection he had preached
and extolled so long, he found nothing to admire, and every thing to
condemn. In a word, never was a pocket-handkerchief so miserable, and
that, too, on grounds so philosophical and profound, met with, on its
entrance