ench Revolution of 1830, which he had witnessed while
living in Paris, and about which the beginning of the plot revolves.}

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF

CHAPTER I.

{Chapter numbers inserted from non-periodical editions of
"Autobiography."}

Certain moral philosophers, with a due disdain of the flimsy
foundations of human pride, have shown that every man is equally
descended from a million of ancestors, within a given number of
generations; thereby demonstrating that no prince exists who does not
participate in the blood of some beggar, or any beggar who does not
share in the blood of princes. Although favored by a strictly vegetable
descent myself, the laws of nature have not permitted me to escape from
the influence of this common rule. The earliest accounts I possess of
my progenitors represent them as a goodly growth of the Linum
Usitatissimum, divided into a thousand cotemporaneous plants,
singularly well conditioned, and remarkable for an equality that
renders the production valuable. In this particular, then, I may be
said to enjoy a precedency over the Bourbons, themselves, who now
govern no less than four different states of Europe, and who have sat
on thrones these thousand years.

{Linum Usitatissimum = Linum usitatissimum (Cooper's capitalization
varies) is the botanical name for the variety of flax from which linen
is made}

While our family has followed the general human law in the matter just
mentioned, it forms a marked exception to the rule that so absolutely
controls all of white blood, on this continent, in what relates to
immigration and territorial origin. When the American enters on the
history of his ancestors, he is driven, after some ten or twelve
generations at most, to seek refuge in a country in Europe; whereas
exactly the reverse is the case with us, our most remote extraction
being American, while our more recent construction and education have
taken place in Europe. When I speak of the "earliest accounts I possess
of my progenitors," authentic information is meant only; for, like
other races, we have certain dark legends that might possibly carry us
back again to the old world in quest of our estates and privileges.
But, in writing this history, it has been my determination from the
first, to record nothing but settled truths, and to reject everything
in the shape of vague report or unauthenticated anecdote. Under these
limitations, I have ever considered my fam