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

by Gertrude Stein

  There were then in the Wyman family, six of them; the mother and father and Madeleine and Louise and Frank and Helen. The mother Mrs. Wyman had her nature in her. The second daughter Louise and the youngest daughter Helen were of her. The father Mr. Wyman had his nature, the son Frank and the eldest daughter Madeleine were of this nature.

  The youngest daughter Helen was all spread and all vague in her nature. She had a good education for she was interested in studying, she was almost interested in writing. She was not so much interested in teaching but teaching was to be her occupation. As a matter of fact she never did much teaching. She did a little teaching but somehow the Wyman family always managed to have enough money to go on living, the father with his book-keeping, the daughter Madeleine first with governessing and then with marrying a rich man always could help them, later, much later, after trying many things Frank Wyman became a nurseryman and with Louise to help him and much later with Madeleine to help him he always kept going, he even took to marrying and having children and with plenty of help around him he always managed to keep going. So as I was saying Helen really never did much teaching although this was intended to be her occupation. There was no opening then for a girl like Helen except teaching, as I was saying she was almost interested in writing but this was never active enough inside her to start her going, just active enough inside her to make her more modern than her sister Madeleine who was the other one in the family who had had education. So then Helen was all spread and all vague in her independent dependent nature, but people who knew her had a friendly feeling for her. She was more of them the people who came to know them the Wyman family, than any other one of them. The son Frank was in that respect a little like her. The two youngest then Frank and Helen were more of their generation than Louise and Madeleine ever had been of the generation around them. So then Helen had vagueness in her like her father, she was spread out more inside her than any other of the Wyman family, she had independent dependent being in her, it was mostly as dependent being in her, it was all spread and all vague in her this being in her. As I was saying she never did much teaching though this was to be the end of her education. As I was saying she came almost to the point of being interested in writing but it remained as vague and spread out as her being, it never came to any thing. Later there was marrying in her living and that was a very strange proceeding. Later in the history of the Hersland children there will be a history of the marrying of Helen which as I was saying was a very strange proceeding.

  Mrs. Wyman then had her nature in her. The second daughter Louise and the youngest daughter Helen were of her. The father Mr. Wyman had his nature, the son Frank and the eldest daughter Madeleine were of this nature.

  The youngest daughter Helen was all spread and all vague in her nature.

  The second daughter Louise was almost as concentrated as her mother but there was less to her nature. There was about as much efficient living in her but there was not any insinuating attacking, her attacking was more a steady pushing. It came to about the same thing as efficient being, it made her less interesting, less menacing, more agreeable to be knowing. It came to about the same amount of efficiency in her nature as her mother had in her and more than that in any of the rest of the Wyman family.

  The important things in her living were the marrying, first of Madeleine, later the strange marrying of Helen and then the taking charge of her, later the helping her brother in his business of nurseryman; the keeping everything going in the later Wyman living when old Mrs. Wyman's methods had no more efficiency for their living. And so she succeeded to her mother's living, she never was married, she never bore children, as I was saying she was of her mother's being but there was less to her nature, there was less variety in her when she was younger, when she was in her middle living, when she was older. There was less variety to her, there was no insinuating attacking to her, there was steady shoving in her that made up in her for any less active attacking there was in her than there was in her mother. She was a drier person than her mother. There was very little change in her, she always had much the same being in her. Her being part of the mother and father's being, that which every one who knew her felt in her was never important to her. To herself inside her she was not more part of her mother and father than were her sisters and her brother. To herself she was part of the livings of her sisters and her brother, that was important being in her, being part of the being of her mother and father was not important being to her. She did not know it in her that she was nearer them than were her sisters and her brother. If she had known it she would not have liked it inside her. Important being in her to herself inside her was being part of the living and the being of her sisters and her brother. It was the marrying of her sisters and the business of her brother that were important to her not the being and the living in her father and her mother. She was to herself then strongly of the being of her sisters and her brother. Her father and her mother were not to her very important inside her. Later then in the histories of her sisters and her brother, in the description of her mother and her father there will be more history of her.

  The son Frank was almost as vague in his nature as his father.

  He was tall then and had a long head and thick hair and at that time he had mild humor in him. He could make jokes at children, give him time he could make jokes at girls and at women. He was not slow but he was not very decided inside him. He was vague inside him as his father was inside him but he was younger then and pleasanter, he was blonder, and milder in manner than his father, but his father was much older and had dried down and he was not really quicker it was only that there was a tender youthful being in the son that threw over him a glamor of being slower and pleasanter than his father. The father was darker and drier and seemed to be quicker. Really they had about the same nature, the two of them, neither of them had an efficient nature. The son had an easier life because he had his sisters, and his wife, later. When he married her she was not stronger in her nature than he was in his nature, but he had the start of her by having his sisters around her. He always all through his living was tall and slow and pleasant and mildly joking and not lazy and not active either and there was always the appearance as if his women, Louise and Madeleine and his wife and Helen were holding him up so that he would keep on standing. His mother had never done this for him. While she was directing the family he had been drifting. He had tried one way of earning a living and then another way and then nothing. It was not till later that he became a nurseryman with women around him to support him. So Frank had a pleasant enough life all his living and successful enough life in his living. He and his father, as I was saying, were both of them alike in this nature. They both had resistance enough to keep going, the father in his book-keeping, with a wife and family around him that he felt only enough to awaken in him some resisting; the son with enough resistance in him to have his women keep on holding him up while he pleasantly and vaguely kept on living. This then is a history of the two of them. Sometime perhaps there will be more understanding of the nature in the two of them.

  The mother Mrs. Wyman had her nature in her. The second daughter Louise and the youngest daughter Helen were of her. The father Mr. Wyman had his nature. The son Frank and the eldest daughter Madeleine were of this nature. In the eldest daughter the nature of the father was more concentrated to make her. It did not make her really an efficient nature. She really had resistance in her.

  Madeleine Wyman had had a pretty good education. She knew french and German well enough to teach them. She knew enough music to teach music when there were music lessons to be given. She had had a good enough education. She had intelligence to listen with understanding to Mr. Hersland's talking. She had a kind of interest in his theories of education. She tried to put them into execution. This is now a little description of them.

  She was then different from the first governess who was a real European governess and a musician, she was different from the second governess who had known nothing. S
he came to the Herslands in answer to an advertisement and Mr. Hersland had been pleased with her.

  The three Hersland children then were having their regular public school living, they had then all the feeling of country children. They had too then every kind of fancy education anything that their father could think would be good for them.

  The third governess was really then only to keep them up in music practising and a little in french and German, mostly then just to be in the house with them. Mr. Hersland was just then deciding that what the children needed was to be kept going and Madeleine Wyman had enough education in every direction to keep them going. Then too, they all of them had the feeling of needing a governess in the house with them. Mrs. Hersland liked her, Mr. Hersland took less interest in engaging her than he had with the first or second one. She came then to be a governess to them because they still had a feeling that the children ought to have some one and Mrs. Hersland liked her and Mr. Hersland had not much interest just then in education. Soon though he began to talk to her about what he wanted her to do for each one of the three of them and what he thought was the right kind of education for children and the difference between European and American education.

  As I was saying Madeleine was like her father in her nature but this was much more concentrated in her than it was in her father or her brother, it was almost as concentrated as their kind of nature was in her mother and her sister Louise. It did not make her a really efficient nature but it gave real resistance inside her and it gave her a certain power with those whose ideas she tried to realise for them. This was the case with Mr. Hersland. It gave her power when she was part of some one's living as with Mrs. Hersland. It did not give her power in teaching because in educating she tried attacking and with this, for her, there was no succeeding so she had never any real power with any one of the three children.

  Later she was married to John Summer. Later they had for a little while an adopted daughter. Madeleine had not wanted her, it was Summer who very much wanted children and did not seem to be able to have any of his own who insisted upon choosing and adopting one. They did not keep her long for soon they took to travelling and Madeleine had not wanted to have her and so they sent her back to the home from where they had gotten her. Madeleine as I was saying had not really an efficient nature, she had not much influence on any one near her. She had none on the adopted child although she nagged her as her mother had done when she had brought up her children, but it was as attacking in Madeleine for she had not wanted the child with her. And so what strength was in her was in living in other people's lives, not in attacking or even really in resisting. With her husband she had no influence, for she had not a feeling of living in him as she had with Mrs. Hersland and with Mr. David Hersland, and Mrs. Hersland's early living, with her husband she was a good enough woman, a wife to travel with him, to induce him to give up business and to take to travelling, but she had no influence with him in the things that were his living, his ideas of eating, of doctoring, of wearing warm clothing. He was a man who had these things in him as a sad religion. Later he died for them. Later there will be much history of him, and his doctoring, and later his dying, and always his strong feeling for ways of eating, for ways of doctoring, for ways of digesting. Madeleine then could keep him travelling, she could induce him to quit business living, she could make it that the adopted child no longer lived with them, she had really had no power in him, she had really no efficient being. She had it in her later to give a sore feeling to the Hersland children by to them owning the father and the mother. Earlier when she was a governess to them Martha sometimes had had a little feeling against her when Madeleine tried to carry out Mr. Hersland's theories of education. The Hersland children were not accustomed to having any one really try to be systematic in such realisation, they were accustomed to have only the pleasant new beginnings of new ways of learning and of out of door living. As I say Martha and sometimes a little David did not like her way of interfering with them, Alfred had not any such reason for a feeling for he was older than David, and a boy, not a girl like Martha, and so Madeleine had nothing really to do with him, Martha then, and a little David then, did not like her way of interfering with them, then they had no feeling about her being with their father and their mother, they really never cared very much then about anything going on in the house with them. They were then all three of them, the Hersland children, more of them, the poorer people who lived in the small houses near them than they were of their father's or their mother's living then. Mr. Hersland's living just then was the beginning of the middle living in his great fortune, the beginning of a struggling to resist a beginning of an ending to his fortune. The beginning of resisting was just then dimly beginning in him, he had not just then such a keen feeling about education. He talked to Madeleine Wyman then about his theories of education but they were not then so live in him as they had been. She tried to realise them for him, that to the children was interfering, that, to him, was not really interesting. He took less and less interest in the children just then excepting when they came up against him. That was then their only existing, for him. Madeleine was conscientious in trying to realise the ideas she knew he had in him. This as I was saying was to Martha and a little to young David, interfering. Later Madeleine had her own trouble in her and the children then went on with their living as was natural to them, having their regular public school living, having all the feeling of country children, having various kinds of fancy education and outdoor living, being of them the poor people near them.

  Mrs. Hersland then had in her her time of being most herself to herself in her feeling. Her important being was then existing from Madeleine Wyman's living in her being, being in her early living, later needing protection against her parents' nagging, needing to be held against them by extra wages which Mrs. Hersland induced Mr. Hersland to give her and a dress made by Mary Maxworthing and Mabel Linker.

  Later then there will be more description of Mr. Hersland and his ideas on education, later then in the history of each one of the Hersland children there will be a description of Madeleine Wyman's effort to realise Mr. Hersland's ideas of education. Now there is to be a description of Madeleine Wyman and Mrs. Hersland and the important feeling in her, and the trying of Mr. and Mrs. Wyman to make Madeleine leave her, and then the leaving of Madeleine and her later marrying John Summer.

  The mother Mrs. Wyman had independent dependent nature in her. The second daughter Louise and the youngest daughter Helen were of her. The father Mr. Wyman had dependent independent earthy instrument nature, the son Frank and the eldest daughter Madeleine were of this nature.

  The youngest daughter Helen was all spread and all vague in her independent dependent nature, more spread and vague in her nature, more spread and more vague in her nature than her father was in his nature. The second daughter Louise was almost as concentrated as he mother but there was less to her nature. The son Frank was almost a vague in his nature as his father. Dependent independent instrument nature was concentrated to make the eldest daughter, Madeleine Wyman, but it did not make of her really an efficient nature. She had about the same concentration in her as her mother and her sister Louise had in their nature. There was real resisting in her, there was some power in her, there was not very much efficiency in her, there was about the same in her as there was in her sister Louise and in her mother. In her it was as dependent independent instrument being, in them as independent dependent being.

  Mrs. Hersland had as her being dependent independent gentle nature with some real resisting in her. Stupid being in her was attacking. Having the children as part of her, having a little resisting to her husband inside her, in her was her winning nature. Resisting winning was in her, in her relation to Mr. Hersland, to attract him, and so to come to be a little a real thing, inside him. Being part of them was her being with her children. She was of them as if they were still a physical part of her. Later they were big around her and she was lost among them and she had weakenin
g inside her. Now they were really not of her, they were more of them the poor people around them than they were of their mother's living then, though they were to her all there ever was of being in her. Now her living was Madeleine Wyman's living in her and later, she and Madeleine resisting to the old Wyman's, Mr. and Mrs. Wyman's trying, by attacking. As I was saying attacking was in Mrs. Hersland stupid being. As I was saying this was in her in her resisting Mr. and Mrs. Wyman. This was in her sometimes with servant girls and their leaving, as I was saying earlier. It was in her most in her defending Madeleine Wyman against Mr. and Mrs. Wyman's trying to make Madeleine leave her.

  Madeleine Wyman then as I was saying had come to be governess to the Herslands because a governess in the house with them had come to be a habit in the family living. They had had two of them, the first had left them to leave America, the second had married, and now it was natural to have a third one. This third one was the first one who was really important to Mrs. Hersland. Mr. Hersland found some important being in all three of them, they were like everything around him, part of him, part of the world around him, part of the beginning always in him. The second one had made more impression on him, she was a healthy woman, he liked to have a feeling of having her in the house with them. The first one had been mostly an ideal to him. The last one Madeleine, was pleasant to have listening to him, she had a neat figure, she was intelligent in listening, he had less active impression from her than he had from the one before her. None of them then, the first or second or third governess were really important then to the three Hersland children, they had existence for them, sometimes they interfered with them, sometimes they were pleasant to have in the house with them, but mostly they were not then any one of the three of them very important to the three children. Later this will come clearer, later in the long histories of each one of the three Hersland children which will now soon be commencing. First there will be a long history of Martha, then of Alfred, and then of young David, and of all of them together and of every one who ever came to know them. Before then there must be some more history of Mrs. Hersland and the important feeling in her that came to her from having Madeleine Wyman as governess in the house with her.