Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief | Page 4

for making it available to scholars everywhere through the Gutenberg
Project.}
{ Because of the limitations imposed by the Gutenberg Project format,
italics used by Cooper to indicate foreign words are ignored, as are
accents; while italics Cooper used for emphasis are usually indicated by
ALL CAPITALS. Unless otherwise indicated, translations are from the
French. The spelling and punctuation of the Graham's Magazine
periodical text have generally been followed, except that certain
inconsistent contractions (e.g., "do n't" or "do'nt" for "don't") have been
silently regularized.}
{I have annotated the edition--identified by {curly brackets}--to
translate most of the French words and expressions which Cooper
frequently employs, to define occasional now-obsolete English words,
and to identify historical names and other references. Cooper frequently
alludes, in the beginning of the work, to events and persons involved in
the French 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 family as American by origin, European by
emigration, and restored to its paternal soil by the mutations and
calculations of industry and trade.
The glorious family of cotemporaneous plants from which I derive my
being, grew in a lovely vale of Connecticut, and quite near to the banks
of the celebrated river of the same name. This renders us strictly
Yankee in our origin, an extraction of which I find all who enjoy it
fond of boasting. It is the only subject of self-felicitation with which I
am acquainted that men can indulge in, without awakening the envy of
their fellow-creatures; from which I infer it is at least innocent, if not
commendable.
We have traditions among us of the enjoyments of our predecessors, as
they rioted in the fertility of their cis-atlantic field; a happy company of
thriving and luxuriant plants. Still, I shall pass them over, merely
remarking that a bountiful nature has made such provision for the
happiness of all created things as enables each to rejoice in its existence,
and to praise, after its fashion and kind, the divine Being to which it
owes its creation.
{cis-atlantic = this side of the Atlantic (Latin)}
In due time, the field in which my forefathers grew was gathered, the
seed winnowed from the chaff and collected in casks, when the whole
company was shipped for Ireland. Now occurred one of those chances
which decide the fortunes of plants, as well as those of men, giving me
a claim to Norman, instead of Milesian descent. The embarkation, or
shipment of my progenitors, whichever may be the proper