【英文原著类】AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF(手帕自传).pdf

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
A POCKET-
HANDKERCHIEF
by James Fenimore Cooper
1
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF
CHAPTER I.
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 mon 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 r