The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress

by Gertrude Stein

  There are many kinds of men and there are many millions made of each kind of them. The many millions of each kind of them have in them each one more or less of that which makes such a kind of them. Of the kind that Mr. David Hersland was he had a great deal of it in him, later it all turned into impatient feeling inside him, later then it became only a weakness in him, he was shrunk away from the outside of him, he needed others then inside him to fill him.

  Mr. David Hersland had it in his strongest living to be as big as all the world around him, it was in him, he was all it in him, it was to him all inside him, he was it and it was to him all always in him. This was the big feeling in him and then he was strong in beginning. This was the biggest time of his living, when this was strong in him his big feeling his being strong in beginning his keeping going even with impatient feeling in him, before all of it in him turned into impatient feeling. This was the big time in his living, and this was when his wife was still in him as a tender feeling, when his children were first beginning to have in them individual feeling. This was the time of such a big feeling in him and then he was strong in beginning. The world around him, all, every moment, in beginning, it was then and it was all in him, and he was strong then and full up with beginning.

  There are many millions of every kind of men, there are many millions of them and they have each one of them more or less in them of the kind of man they are and this makes a different being of each one of the many millions of that kind of them, that, the quantity in them of their kind of being, and the mixture in them of other kinds of being in them. There are many millions of each kind of men and other kinds of being are mixed up in each one of each kind of them but the strongest thing in each one of them is the bottom in them the kind of being in them that makes them. The bottom to every one then is the kind of being that makes him, it makes for him the kind of thinking, the way of eating, the way of drinking, the way of loving, the way of beginning, and the way of ending, in him. Other kinds of natures are in almost all men and almost all women mixed up in them with the bottom nature of them, and this mixture in them with the amount they have in them of their bottom kind of nature in them makes in each one a different being from the many millions always being made like him.

  There are many kinds of men then and there are always many millions made of each kind of them. There is a kind of them that have it in them to be as big as all the world in their feeling, to be strong in beginning, and that is their kind of men. For such a kind of men the world around them is all in a beginning, for each of them beginning is the strongest thing in them. There are many millions of such a kind of men and they have it in all of them to be strong in beginning. In some of them, and they are mostly weaker in all their living, weaker than some of the other millions made of that kind of them, some of them keep on to their last minute with beginning, they are always a little weaker in their living, they are always to their last ending busy with beginning, some of such a kind of them have a great kind of bigness in them but they are weaker in their living than others of that kind of men, some of such ones of that kind of men have a great kind of feeling in them but it is in them only great in its beginning, it goes out into little things later in them, they must then have it in them to commence a new beginning to be big again inside them, they go on to their last ending in beginning, they are always a little weaker in living, they are always to their last ending busy with beginning. Some of this part of that kind of men have it in them to be big in their beginning, to have then a kind of greatness in them in the feeling they have inside them with beginning, and then it turns into an empty nothing in them, sometimes it turns into a blown up feeling in them, sometimes into a full emptiness that is then all there is of them then and keeps on so inside them to their ending. They are some then who keep on to their last minute with beginning, they are always a little weaker in their living, they are always to their last ending busy with beginning. There are some of the kind of men, the kind that have beginning as the strongest thing inside them, there are many of them many of the many millions of them, there are many of them who so sometime keep on going keep on going a little time with some one thing they have had in them as beginning; there are some who sometime keep on going with something they sometime had as a beginning, keep on going with it then to their ending. These are some of the many millions of such a kind of men who have it in them to be as big in their feeling as all the world around them. There are some of such a kind of men who have it in them to push some one thing through to an ending something they have sometime had as a beginning, there are some of the many millions of this kind of men who have it in them to push several things through to an ending several things that they have had as a beginning in them. There are some who have something strong inside them that pushes through to an ending what they have in them as a beginning, some have such a success in them. Some have some time almost a success in them, some have something almost as a success inside them and then it breaks down in them, some of such of them try then with a new beginning, some of such of them break down inside them and there is then an end to them. Some have the beginning feeling in them turn into impatient feeling inside them as David Hersland had it in him. All of all the many millions of such a kind of men have it in them some time to be in them as big as all the world in their feeling, they have it in them all of them to be strong in all beginning.

  David Hersland had a mixture in him and this will come out clearly in the history of him. As I was saying the biggest time in his living was when he was in Gossols near the end of that beginning when he was making his great fortune, when his wife was still in him as a tender feeling, when the important feeling she had in her then was a kind of joke to him, when she was not important to him but was not yet a trouble to him with letting the children be too strong for her to have them inside her to him, when his children were first beginning to have a little in them of an individual being. At the end of this beginning in him before he came to be full up with impatient feeling there was beginning in him impatient feeling, then his children were beginning not any longer to be part of their mother to him, they were beginning to be part of the world around him that he was domineering, fighting, brushing away from before him, sometimes breaking away from and leaving though he never knew this of himself in him, there was beginning then in him impatient feeling and in a joking way with a little irritation in him he brushed his wife away from before him, he was fighting then or domineering the men around him in his business living or brushing them away from around him or taking another way in a blustering fashion so as not to be beaten by them. This was at the beginning of the ending of his great beginning and this was when his wife had strongest in her her own important feeling. In the beginning of his great beginning he had a little of impatient feeling in him, always ever since he had had finished in him the adolescent being he had had a little impatient feeling in him but up to the beginning of the ending of his big beginning it had not had very much irritation in it for him or for others around him, he was hearty then and everything was in him then in his feeling, he was strong then in beginning, the world around him then to him was all every moment in beginning and he was it and it was all in him, and he was strong then and full up with beginning.

  When a man is in the middle of his living it is very hard for any one who knows him, hard for himself or for others around him, for the men around him or his wife or other women or his children or the children who play with them, hard for any one of them to know him. Later in his living when it comes to be inside him that it all settles down inside him and he begins repeating in him the whole thing he is then it is then easy to begin to know him, any one who stays with him then can learn to know the kind of man he is then. When a man is in the middle of his living it is very hard to know him. Mostly with women in the middle of their living it is not so hard to know them, it is in them when they are young women that they are like a man in the middle of his living. Anyhow it is very hard to know of most men and to know it in many w
omen in the middle of their living what there is in them, what there is as a bottom to them, what there is mixed up inside them. Slowly, more and more, one gets to know them as repeating comes out in them. In the middle of their living they are always repeating, everybody always is repeating in all of their whole living but in the middle of the living of most men and many women it is hard to be sure about them just what it is they are repeating, they are in their living saying many things then and it is hard to know it about them then what it is in them they are repeating that later in their living will show itself to be the whole of them to any one who wants to watch them. Babies in repeating have not very many different kinds of ways of doing it in them but growing old men and women in repeating show the kind of men, the kind of women that is in them. They show it in them then which they are of the many kinds of men and women. Perhaps babies have it in them to be each one a little different from all the other babies that are always being made but they have not it in them to have so many different kinds of them as men and women have it in them. Babies have not it in them to show much to any one who sees them in their repeating the kind they are then. There are not so many kinds of babies as there are kinds of men and women. Growing old men and women have in them the kind they are of men and women and that comes out to any one that stays with them in the repeating that more and more then repeats the whole of them.

  Mr. David Hersland in his middle living was in Gossols making his great fortune. He had many things then in him, his living with men around him in his business living, his living with his wife, his knowing other men and women, his living on the ten acre place in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living his living on the ten acre place with his wife and children and governess and servants there in the house with him and with poor people in small houses near them. All these then came to know him, there was not then in him yet the certain repeating that makes older men and older women clear to every one that looks long at them, there was in him then all that later would break down into repeating. There was for him then his business living, there was for him then his children beginning to have in them individual being, there was for him then his wife and she was having in her then her most important feeling. Every one who then saw him came a little then to know him but it was not easy then for them and this is a history of how each one of them then felt him.

  There was a mixture in him of several ways in which his kind of men have it in them to work out in them the beginning which is the strongest thing in them and the feeling themselves as big as all the world around them. This mixture in him had many ways of coming out in him, in the middle of his living. It was not easy to know it certainly about him then which mixture was most him, always it came out a good deal in him to everybody who saw him or knew him then that he was a man who was in feeling himself inside him as big as all the world around him, that he was the kind of man who has it in him the being strong in beginning. In his middle living it was hard to tell which kind of a way this would work out in him, whether he had it in him to push on to succeeding in some one thing, whether something in him would push itself through to success through all the beginnings in him, whether it would each time break down in him, whether he would break down into weakness inside him, whether several things would come to a finish that he had as beginnings in him, whether all beginning in him would change off into another beginning, whether he would become bland inside him, whether the beginnings in him would break down into impatient feeling, whether there would be several of these things in him. In his middle living not any one could tell anything of this certainly about him.

  As I have said once, to the people living in the small houses near them he was then in the big middle of his living, he was, in the beginning of their knowing him, to them, a queer man, with his big ways in buying and his way of owning everything around him to his feeling, they never then had trouble with him, he was then a good neighbor for them to have near them, a rich man to buy from them, they liked him but they had not then any personal feeling for him, he had queer ways in him but they laughed pleasantly for him for he was a rich man and they had a respect for him, he was a good neighbor to any of them who asked him to do anything for them, he was prompt in paying, he was large in buying, he was apart from them, they knew then nothing more about him, his children were a little of them then the people around him then, his wife lived among them the people around him then but above them in her country house feeling, Mr. Hersland was to them a city man and he had a home near them in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living, to them then he was not living among them, he was a city man to them. They were as I have said about them, these people in the small houses near him, they were in their being half city and half country people. He was to them in the first beginning of their knowing him, a city man for their half country feeling. Slowly they came to know more about him in his country living, they first learned to know more about him as a man with a country house feeling in him, then it came to be for them that they knew him as a city man with a little country living in him, later in his later living they came to know in him city being with their half city feeling and this was for them the end of his living, the end of his being among them.

  All men and all women, if they keep on in their living come to the repeating that makes it clear to anyone who listens to them then the real nature of them. In the middle living of most men and many women it is very hard to know them, with some of them it is much harder than with others of them. With women, mostly, it is easier to know them then, for there is with them in their middle living less complete mixing of the natures in them than in most men. They, many women, have not in their middle living so much in their way of being to make it all inside them mix into a whole as most men have it in them in their middle living, they have less in the conditions of their living to make the natures in them mix together with the bottom nature of them to make a whole of them than most men have it then in them. In their middle living there is stronger in them the simple repeating that makes them clear to any one who stays with them, with most of them any one who watches them then can come to know them. With most men, though many millions of the many kinds of them have this less in them, most kinds of men in their middle living are mixed up then to be a whole thing then and so it is harder then to be sure with them what is the bottom nature in them, how far this bottom nature of them will drive them; and so children can not tell it of them then how far anger in a father will drive him, girls cannot tell it in a man then how far a feeling in him will bring him, business men and men working with him or under him, men he is directing, men who are fighting him, they are like his children, they are never certain in his middle living how far the power in him will carry him, then it begins a little more to break down into repeating in him, then more and more they see it in him just how far the nature in him will carry him, and so more and more then it breaks down into repeating in him and this goes on to the last end of him. His wife, a wife living with a man, knows it earlier about him in her feeling what is the bottom nature of him, knows it sooner about him than his children or the men who are with him in his business living. In the relation a wife has with a man, in loving, in eating, in drinking, in sleeping, in doctoring, there is more simple repeating, and so the wife living with him comes sooner to feel it in him in his middle living what will come to be later his repeating than any one else who can then know him. Mostly she knows it about him just at the beginning of his middle living, mostly no one else comes to be sure about it in him until toward the beginning of the ending of his middle living. This in a wife, most often, is mostly not a conscious feeling but she has it in her to know about him how far the feeling in him will drive him.

  One never can know certainly in any one the nature of him when he is a boy or a young man for then there are many things to drive him that are not the nature of him, in the middle living it is only the nature in him that will drive him and this will come out then always more and more in him as he begins then a
t the beginning of the ending of his middle living to repeat more and more the whole of him.

  With Mr. David Hersland then in his middle living, the men who were working with him, the men who were working under him, they all knew it about him that he was as big as all out doors in his feeling inside him, they knew it about him that he was strong in beginning, they never knew it about him then so that they could be certain then in them how far anything in him would go to an ending, how far the nature in him might drive him, how far there would be success in him, if there ever would come to him a breaking down inside him, what it would be that would fill him in his later living, what would be the repeating in his later living that would show the nature in him. His children had it in them to know it sooner about him than the men in his business living, they knew it sooner about him how strong it was beginning to be in him in his middle living that his beginning would break down into impatient feeling. They knew this about him sooner than the men with him in his business living, they knew it sooner about him how far his nature would take him, they learnt it about him from the anger in him but this to them too was in the beginning of the ending of his middle living. They soon knew then that his beginning would break down into impatient feeling, later they learned it about him that the anger in him would never carry him to any last act against them.