Set in Paris and New York in the 1830s, this fable is narrated by a pocket handkerchief, an article which at that time was used more for show than for blow. It is, thus, distinguished for its beauty rather than for the function of ordinary handkerchiefs. It begins its autobiography by establishing its ancestry back through several generations of flax plants, starting in America and then moving to France when a large shipment of flaxseed was captured by a French privateer. Every flax plant and its linen offspring enjoy a special kind of clairvoyance which unites their perceptions with those of both their vegetable ancestors and their human associates. For this reason all pieces of linen are wiser and better informed than is generally supposed, and the observations of a sophisticated pocket handkerchief provide a most fitting vehicle for the broad social satire of the story.