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

by Gertrude Stein

  I know for fairly certain now something of the meaning of the being in this one and I am now beginning the telling of the meaning of the being in this one though now still I am a little puzzling over understanding this one.

  As I was saying, take one kind of being, say ten men and women have this kind of being, some of these ten have other kinds of being mixed up in them but that is not what I am now discussing.

  As I was saying, take ten men and women having in them a kind of being in them, not a general kind of resemblance between them but a pretty close resemblance between them, this is now a pretty small subdivision of men and women, of course there are many millions always living of this kind of them but say I have in all my living known ten of them, that is now a subdivision, a particular kind of them that have each one of them a kind of being in them that is very definite in its character in each one of them giving to each one of them a very definite way of learning, loving, fighting, escaping, having stupid being in them, having moral or unmoral or immoral meanings in them.

  This then now is clear, this is a definite kind of being, this being in some way in all of these ten men and women. This kind of them is one subdivision of attacking being. This kind of them have it in them to mostly succeed fairly well in living, some of course are failing, some of every kind of being are succeeding and some are failing but some of kinds of men and women have it to have more of them succeeding than failing, some kinds of them have more of them failing than succeeding, some kinds of them have it to be divided about even in succeeding and failing in living.

  This kind of being then that all these ten have in them is a kind of attacking being. In these attacking is mostly not very active in them, loving in them is attacking being and most of them have it to have loving strongly in them but in most of them loving being in them is overflowing into nervous being in them, this nervous being in them is not energy in them as it is in some where loving is nervous being, in these of them nervous being is an excess in them, they have much passion in them, it is active in them, it is nervous being in them, nervous being in them is not active loving or attacking being in them. This is very clear in them to any one knowing them, every one mostly who knows a fair number of men and women knows certainly some of them, sometime some one perhaps will know the kind of men and women I am now trying describing. It is very discouraging, I begin again.

  This kind of them then has not attacking as very active in them, mostly they have in them much loving but there is in it so much nervous being draining them, not entering into the active being in them that many of them are not really active in loving. This kind of them, the kind of being these ten have in common is very clear to me from knowing these ten of them, I will now begin again to try to describe them.

  These then as I was saying, those having this being in them are of the attacking kind in men and women, they most of them succeed very well in living, most of them have very considerable loving being in them, most of them have much nervous being in them. The nervous being not being energy in them gives to many of them the appearance of there being much repression in them, this is not as true of them as it seems from the nervous being always showing. The repression is an interpretation others have of them for this kind of nervous being that these have in them that is not energy in them is something like the nervous being that is generated in some men and women whose nervous being is energy in them, from repression.

  All of them have this same kind of nervous being in them then, all of them of whom I have been speaking, these ten of them. Some have it more, some have it less in them, all of them have it in them and it is not energy in them, it is not from repression in them, it is part of their kind of being, those who have attacking being but not much attacking action in them, a considerable capacity for succeeding, a considerable capacity for loving. It is very important to know then that in this kind of them nervous being is not energy of action, not a result of suppressing themselves in their loving or their living.

  Mostly this kind of men and women have it in them to have more loving, nervous being, intelligence, success in living, than activity in attacking, emotion and feeling and enthusiasm. These then have mostly much common sense but these have not much practical sense in living. All this is very interesting and so now I must begin again.

  These ten of them have in them the same kind of being. There will be now some more description of the being in them. This last that I have been saying about the practical sense in them is not very well expressed yet and so now I will try again.

  This kind of being is as I was saying an attacking being with not very much attacking fighting in them, these have in them mostly the quality of succeeding well enough in living, they are opportunists in living and they have moral conviction. Let me begin again then, I will begin again to explain the being in them.

  As I was saying earlier those having attacking being have it in them to have in them a strong sense of the meaning, the emotion, the use of the facts every one knows in living. Those having in them resisting being have stronger in them a realisation of the thing itself that makes the fact rather than the sense of the meaning of the thing, the use of it. The resisting kind can love money and living not for the use, emotion, meaning, but for the thing itself as a thing existing. Sometime I will make this clearer but this must do now as a beginning.

  This kind then that I am now describing have as I was saying attacking being but not much activity in attacking, they have sense for facts as attacking being have them but they have not much instinctive emotion about them or sense of the use of them, they have in short no dramatic sense for facts in living but being of the attacking kind of being these have a sense for the meaning of facts in being and so it comes that this kind of them are opportunistic, highly rationalising, unimaginative, having no instinct for meaning in anything but regarding only the meaning and the use in things, having no instinct for quality in people but wanting completely to understand and use them.

  I will take for more understanding of them the moral sense in them. Say one of such of them being as is true of most of them strongly wanting success in living, such a one knows then that honesty is the best policy for him. This one then will completely realise the meaning in this saying, to him it is wisdom, as the way necessary for him to be acting to be succeeding. So far it is opportunism in him, the embracing of this conviction that honesty is the test policy for him. This then is the meaning to him in honest living, and then such a one embraces this as a moral principle, such a one then holds to this if it means ruin to him, such a one has rationally and opportunistically embraced this way of being, this one then makes of this an absolute conviction, a complete moral principle for living, this one then has no sense for opportunistically adapting himself in detail in living, such a one has no practical dramatic sense for living, such a one has attacking being but no activity in attacking, such a one has embraced a creed from the sense of succeeding, of rational opportunism, it is then a moral conviction in this one, this one then has no imagination for facts or people but this one can build a complete system for living and if such a one has a good head on him, such a one is mostly successful enough in living. Herbert Spencer was such a kind of one.

  These then, these ten of them have it to have in common a kind of being that is of the attacking kind of being but these have not much activity of attacking in them, many of these are successful enough in living, mostly these have pretty strongly loving being in them, these have mostly strongly nervousness in them and this nervousness is not part of energy in them, it is not energy in them and that is the reason there is very little attacking being in them, it is something like that kind of nervousness that comes from repression in some men and women but mostly repression is not in this kind of them, mostly these are opportunists at the bottom of them though they all of them mostly at some time make of some principle a rationally constructed system and then make of that system a moral conviction, and so these of them are a curious spectacle of opportunism, rationalising
passion, moral conviction, nervousness, much love, emotion.

  Mind then in all of this land in men and women is highly rationalising, mostly these have not much instinct for being in things and in men and women. What these realise as being in things and in men and women is mostly true and alright for a beginning for living but these then do not react to it in living, these rationalise it and from that they come to a principle in living that from then on all their life guides them. These have not then a capacity for growing from experiencing for they have made their conviction from their early realising and then it is in them a principle of living, mostly in all of them this original realisation in them is a fairly intelligent rationalised opportunism.

  Perhaps this is clear now to some one. It is certainly a clear thing for some one to be understanding, this is certainly a clear thing in this kind of men and women.

  These have then mostly quick clear minds but the results of their thinking are not quick in coming as they are all of them complicatedly rationalising, some of them think they have slow minds but this is not true of them, they have the quick minds and quick impressions of the attacking kind of being, but their minds being so rationalising it takes them some time to complete the whole thing, their mind begins with each thing and they think they are slow in taking impressions because mostly they are closed to impressions from anything as their mind when it is formulating is occupying the whole of them and until their mind opens them again they are closed to impressions and so as I was saying these mostly have little power of experiencing.

  Now all this leads to very complicated things in each one having in them such a being, those having good minds, better minds than capacity for experiencing, such can have some principle of growth in them, for their minds can keep them open to all impressions they are capable of receiving and can make the most use of those impressions that they have received inside them. Those having mind only about as strong as the power of receiving impressions in them, such of them just keep going, they are fairly successful in living some of them, there is not much growth in them. There are some of them who have finer power of receiving impressions than quality of mind to direct them and these then more and more are stultified in their living by running themselves by their minds as all of those having this kind of being always do run themselves. This is now a description of learning the last kind of one as a whole one. This then is now a description of one of them, one of these ten of them.

  This one for many years was baffling to me. It was evident that all the being in this one always was repeating to every one's hearing, it was evident that in this one there was not a mixture of many kinds of being and yet this one was baffling, this one had strange contradictions in him. This one said of himself that he had a slow-working mind, this one had to himself and to every one a moral passion for goodness in him, this one was to every one generous and disinterested in thinking and in being, this one was an opportunist in living, this one had very fine sensibilities to beauty and to luxury in living, this one very often was not open to any such impression, this one had a passion for being loving, this one had not any really passionate loving in him, this one had a fixed scheme of living for grace and beauty and had no grace in him and no power of creating beauty in the conditions of living around him, this one had much ambition and was very successful in living, this one then was baffling and for a long long time I was puzzling and puzzling and now this one is a clear one to me.

  Each one, as I was saying, having a kind of being in them has that being in them in different intensities, proportions, they have in them too most of them different kinds of beings mixed up in them but that is not what I am now considering. Each one then of these ten of them of this kind of them that I have been describing, all of these ten of them then that I have known in living has it in them to have this nature in them the kind of nature that is common to all these ten, in different proportions, different intensities, different relation of one part to the other part of the nature and so each one of them had their own being in them, each one was separate, each one was resembling to the others of them. Some of them have other natures too in them that make the things I have been describing, acting differently in them, some of them had this being that I have been describing as a bottom nature to them, others have it as a nature mixed up with another kind of nature in them, one of them had it as the whole being in him, and this one I am now beginning to describe my learning as a whole one.

  Each one sometime is a whole one to me, each one sometime is a whole one in me, this one for a long time was baffling, this one now is a whole one to me, this one now I am again beginning describing learning.

  Each one having the kind of being in them that I have been just describing has in her or in him more or less of all the things, all the things in him or in her, I have been describing. Each one of these then has more or less opportunism in their feeling about living, each one of them has loving being that is of the attacking kind but not active in attacking, often very desiring, sometimes appearing engulfing, sometimes never coming into the relation of loving. Each one of this kind of them have a mind that is slow only because it takes much time in going through many logical processes to a conclusion, not slow in actual action, not slow in developing, mostly all of this kind of men and women are quite the same in ways of thinking, learning, understanding, quite from their beginning, there is then in the minds of this kind of men not much developing. Each one of them or this kind in men and women has more or less in them the way of making of whatever was the beginning of their living and the conclusions from this beginning a principle that in some is like a firm moral resolution. In all of this kind of them this acting of the mind in them cuts them off from experiencing, they are of the attacking kind in men and women, things are important to them as use, emotion, passion gives them meaning but these have not any of them activity in attacking being and so they have not imagination or dramatic sense of meaning in them, they have not a spontaneous relation to things in living, in some way in each one of them it, the experience, must go through their more or less rationalising mind before reaction acting to the fact is in them and so then they are not often getting into trouble but most of their living they are not experiencing. This is strange in them when they have strongly in them a love of beauty and luxury in them and this will be soon the history of one of such of them. In all of them then all these ten who have it to have this being in common in them, in all of them there is more or less actively in them all these things I have been describing, mostly in each one there is enough more of one part than another part of this being in them to make the meaning of their being a fairly clear thing in them, to make their living and their being have a fairly clear meaning, in some of these ten there are other natures in them, in some other nature as bottom being in them but that we are not just now considering. As I was saying many having a being in them have the balance of that being in them so kept that one kind of living, one kind of existing is natural to them and has meaning, this was true then of most of these ten of whom I have been talking, it was not true of all of them.

  In one the one I am now beginning describing, the one who was a long time baffling to me, all these things I have been describing as the being of this one kind of being were equally strongly in him, all these things then, all of them were equally strongly repeating in him all through his living and so this one was baffling, for mostly in every one all the qualities in a kind of being are not equally active in them. This made this one baffling. This made this one puzzling for this one had profound impression by beauty and this was complete and poignant and quick in him and he had the rationalising mind acting on each piece of impression and shutting him off from getting deep and poignant and complete impressions from things before him and so he was puzzling, he had opportunism so strongly in him that each time he was open to a new relation with anything in life or a man or a woman he acted in this way toward them and also he had created for himself a whole rationalised scheme of living of beauty and goodness a
nd fairness to every one because that was the way to make the living that would be successful and beautiful, to him. Always to himself he was always open to feeling beauty and goodness and nobility in living, always to himself he had made a scheme of complete living in luxury and success and winning admiration, always to himself he could completely understand everything with his mind which was to himself a great thing in him, never was he ever knowing that his running himself by his mind which was making always for him his theory of beauty and goodness and luxury was closing him to impressions of beauty and luxury and learning. This he never knew in him. He did not know his kind of a mind had never any relation to experience excepting as a beginning, when his mind was working he was shut off from experiencing, such being the way a mind works in this kind of being, and so this one was baffling, no one would ever expect one person, one man or one woman, would have in the completest form all the parts of a kind of being and so this one was baffling, there was complete contradiction in him and yet he was all of one kind of being, this one then was baffling and for a long time this one was not a whole one to me and then I understood the meaning in him, he had it in him all the qualities of this kind of being that was in any of these ten that I have said all had in them this kind of being.

  This is very clear to me now. Now I am not any longer puzzling about this one. This is not very clear yet in my telling. This will be clearer when I have told of the loving being in this one.

  There are many ways of having loving feeling, this one that I am now describing had loving feeling in every kind of way any one having the kind of being common to these ten could have it in her or in him.

  Each kind of being has then its own way of loving, of having loving feeling, of having it and having it to themselves as themselves acting in it. This one, the one I am now describing had it in every way this one's kind of being can have it.