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

by Gertrude Stein

  As I was saying the one I was describing that had all independent dependent being in solution, this one had as all of those having independent dependent being in them have it as being, this one had attacking as the natural way of winning anything. This one as I was saying had all the being in a flabby kind of state that made this one when this one was attacking made all the being in this one then when the being in this one was in motion made it that the being in this one, all the being of this one, was then when attacking just in a state of motion and so to any one feeling this one this one would seem to have resisting being as the natural way of acting for the movement of the whole being in this one, this one being then in a state of attacking really was then to every one knowing this one in this state of action, for it was so slow the moving of the whole being that made this one, that any one coming in contact with this one then or any such a one, sticking so to speak in the mass of this when meeting this one would think of this one as resisting but this was not true of this one then or of any of such of them that have independent dependent being in solution in them, it is stupid being in them that wobbling in them that is their moving that is so slow and uncertain that to any one knowing them, feeling them, seeing them it is not in them as attacking moving activity in them but attacking that is the being in this one and in the others like this one having in them each one independent dependent being. And so then often this kind of a one is from the spreading of the being in that one always then slower and slower in moving in the attacking activity of such a one, and very very often with such a one the attacking never coming to real action as a using of the energy generated in the attacking feeling in independent dependent being of such a kind of one, makes such a kind of one a nervous kind of being and this is then the way independent dependent being can in some be very confusing for attacking does not seem to be the way of active being of them and so it takes much knowing of the being in men and women to realise the action in them. This one then the one I was describing had then independent dependent being but attacking never came to really be ever an action and so this one was to many very resisting, stubborn in resisting and this was only because attacking being in this one never came to be anything more than the whole mass of being that was this one being just moving. As I was saying before, this one that I was describing was the least possible concentration, the most diffuse possible kind of existing of independent dependent being. As I was saying this one a little more concentrated was what made the being of Martha Hersland, Martha who is now soon to be a complete one to every one reading this description. As I was saying the one I have been just describing had with this attacking always much nervous being. As I was saying this one I was describing being made a little into something having a little more concentration would be the being I am now beginning describing. As I was saying the one I was describing was of the independent dependent kind of them, this was the being too that Martha Hersland had in her. The one I was describing had independent dependent being in its weakest concentration, Martha Hersland had independent dependent being in a state of a little more concentration. As I was saying all her living the first one I was describing was a whole one, always a complete one to herself and to every one, this then as I was saying, being always a whole one to herself and every one all through her living was a thing every one will know soon in Martha Hersland. The first one then I was describing was of the independent dependent kind of them that is one having attacking as the natural way of winning fighting, this is the being, the independent dependent being, is the being that is in Martha Hersland, the one I am now again beginning describing, the oldest of the three of them, the three Hersland children.

  As I was saying there is a kind of way of yielding, a kind of way of having sensitive being that every one having independent dependent being have in them as their way of being. There will be just now very little description of this in any one. Later there will be very much description of this in every one having in them independent dependent being. Now there will be mostly a beginning of understanding of attacking and resisting and stupid being, and nervous being, and a little of the yielding and the sensitive being in some having in them independent dependent being and now there will be a beginning of all these in one and this one is Martha Hersland the oldest of the three Hersland children.

  As I was saying when Martha was a very little one, the Herslands were living in a ten acre place and they were poor people in small houses living near them and the Herslands had a governess and servants then living in the house with them.

  Later when Martha was a little bigger, she went to a school near them where the children living in the small houses near them went too to get their instruction and Martha was of them then of all of them the poor people near them; the Hersland children always had then a governess in the house with them. This made two different kinds of living for them, this was more troublesome to Martha than to the two other children who were boys and so not really in actual relation to the family living and the governess in the house with them. To begin now a description of what every one knowing Martha Hersland when she was a little one felt or knew or thought of the being that now every one reading is commencing feeling, knowing.

  As I was saying, when Martha was a very little one and just beginning to go out with other children the governess was never then with the Hersland children, any of them, when they were very little ones and went out with other children. The children were of the living of the people about them, they had that kind of living feeling in them, the kind of living feeling natural in the people living in the small houses near them. The Hersland family then, the Hersland children all three of them had the living feeling in them of the people about them. Mr. Hersland had not the living feeling of the people about them completely in him for he went every day into a very different kind of living but he had a good deal of it in him for his past living was not strongly ever in him. Mrs. Hersland had no other daily living than her household and her children and the living feeling of the people in the small houses near them but in Mrs. Hersland there was always in her as her real living feeling for her, the past living, the right rich American living that was the natural way of living in her. The three children as I was saying had each one of them more in them then of the living feeling natural to the people then around them than they had the living feeling belonging to the kind of living natural to the children of the father and the mother of them. Each one of the three of them Martha, Alfred and David Hersland had in them the living feeling natural to the poorer people around them differently in them. This will come out in the long histories of each one of them. This is now a long history of the oldest of them, Martha Hersland and this is now a beginning of description of the way she had in her to be of them the people living near the Herslands in small houses near the ten acre place where the Herslands were living then in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living.

  As I was saying when Martha was a little one, when she first went to school and this was very soon after the Herslands began living in the ten acre place in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living for Martha had been born when the Herslands had just come to Gossols and were living in the hotel as I was saying, in the hotel where Mrs. Hersland knew Sophie Shilling and Pauline Shilling and Mrs. Shilling; and so as I was saying when they came, the Hersland family, to live on the ten acre place where they went on living to after the time when Martha a grown woman came back out of her trouble to live again with them, Martha the oldest of the three Hersland children was old enough to begin her schooling, was old enough to begin having living feeling forming in her, to be of them the people living near them.

  As I was saying Mr. Hersland believed in independence for his children, in democratic schooling for them, in having a governess in the house with them for their education, in healthy out of door living.

  Martha Hersland then when she was a very little one, when she was a little one, when she was a bigger one, when she was running her own living, when sh
e was a lost one, when she was shrunken when she was older, and always all of her living every minute in her living was the same one, the same whole one, to herself and to every one ever knowing her being. She was as I was saying a little more concentrated version of the one I was just describing. Like that one she was always all her living a whole one, like that one always all her living being a whole one had not really much meaning. This is now again a beginning of the being Martha had in her all her living.

  Some have their real being in young living, some do not have it then in them, all have their real being in young living to some, not any one has their real being in young living to some.

  Martha Hersland had in her independent dependent being as I was saying. Martha in her young living was a whole one, always all her living Martha was a whole one. Sometime she was older, sometimes she was happier, sometimes she was nervouser, sometimes she was farther from and sometimes nearer failure, always she had the same being in her, always she was of the independent dependent kind of them, always she was like the other one I was describing excepting that Martha had independent dependent being in a little more concentrated form in her and so she would keep together even without the skin of her to hold her, one part would stick to the other part of her, she would not be flowing everywhere if there was not a skin to hold her, so then she was a little in more ways a whole one than the one I was describing that had independent dependent being in solution.

  Always then, as I was saying, Martha was a whole one. When Martha was a little one, as I was saying she was of them the poorer children living near the Hersland family then and she went to school with them. When she was a little one as I was saying the Hersland family always had a governess living in the house with them to educate the Hersland children in music, french and German and any other kind of education Mr. Hersland at any other time thought it would be good for them to be having. The Hersland family then had a governess living in the house with them when Martha was a little one and then on to when Martha was quite old enough not to like them ever to be interfering with anything she wanted to be doing, with any kind of reading or knowing any one or any way she was learning anything. Then later than that they the Herslands still had one and then more and more the governess living in the house with them had really nothing to do with the Hersland children, but always as long as a governess was in the house with them the governess would be a little sometime troublesome to Martha Hersland and her living then.

  To those knowing Martha Hersland then when she was a young one when she was beginning her individual being, she was then a whole one, to no one quite entirely pleasing, but most of those knowing her then liked her well enough whenever they thought about her and sometimes then they did not like her.

  As I was saying she went to school with the children near them, the for the Hersland children, poorer children near them. As I was saying when the Hersland family moved to the ten acre place Martha was already old enough to begin her schooling. As I was saying then when she was a very little one and she was coming home with them, they went faster than she could then, they left her then and she was running with the umbrella one of them had left with her after saying she would carry it for her and she was saying I will throw the umbrella in the mud and then she was crying, I have thrown the umbrella in the mud, and then later she got home and the umbrella was not with her but one of the other ones one of those who had left her went back that day later and got it for her. Then she was a very little one and just beginning knowing the children near her. When she was a little bigger she was in her living almost entirely of them the people near her. As I was saying they mostly all liked her well enough when they thought about her, they did not think very much about her, sometimes when they thought about her they did not like her. She was for them mostly then as if she had been one of them in her natural way of living, there was nothing in her to make her a different kind of child from the others of them, she was of them and yet a little sometimes it was troublesome to her and for them in her that she was not of them in the living that would have been natural for her. It was more important in her for them when a little they were beginning all of them to have loving in them, for she not being of them a little must not get into a kind of trouble that would be alright for them in the kind of living that was the natural way of living for them. Neither they nor she really knew this inside them ever in their living but it was a little troublesome there to her and for them, troublesome as the governess was in her living, not really ever interfering, sometimes a little attempting to be interfering, always there as being a thing that had no meaning really in her living but could not ever have been there ever if the living that was then for her real living had been for her her natural way of living. Slowly this came to be in her as something stronger, something slowly making a difference in her as she grew older. Slowly then things happened to these children she knew then as they grew older that would not happen to her as she grew older. She was living very much their life when she was not at all any more of them; this is now a little more description of the being in her and how they felt her every one who then knew her.

  Mr. Hersland as I was saying, in his middle living had in him much impatient being. Mr. Hersland as I was saying had in him independent dependent being as a bottom nature to him, as most of him. Martha Hersland as I was saying had independent dependent being as all the being in her. Always more and more I am understanding independent dependent being and all the kinds of ways it has of being, making different kinds in men and women. Always more and more I am understanding dependent independent being and all the ways it has of being in the kinds of men and women having such being in them. Always more and more then I am understanding being in all the kinds there are ever existing of men and women. To commence again now with Martha Hersland and how her father Mr. David Hersland felt her.

  As I was saying Mr. Hersland had a strong feeling about educating his children. Mostly always it was strongly in him the feeling of the need of educating them, always it was changing in him, the feelings he had in him about what kind of education was the right kind of education for them but always that is mostly always there was one thing constant in him the wanting them to be individual and independent. Sometimes when they were too much of one kind of living he had a new theory of independence for them that took the form of restrictions on the liberty they were enjoying and sometimes he wanted that they should be as they would have been if they had had the living that would have been natural for them and this came to him a few times in the living of his daughter Martha and he tried to make her over but mostly he wanted them to have an education making them to be strong and independent. About their living the life, of the poor people near them, he never really thought about this in them. Mostly as I was saying when he was in the country it was to him as if he were of their living, he had then no sense of social distinction, they were poor men and he was a rich one, he never wanted then his children to have any position. His feeling about his daughter Martha then in the beginning was that she was of them, later that she could learn from them what they all knew in living, later when she sometimes met people it would have been natural she should be knowing he was impatient at the way she was looking and he was full up then with impatient feeling. Mostly she was never important to him, very much later in her living she filled him very full of impatient feeling. As I was saying they were both of them of the independent dependent kind of them. There was a great difference in the way they had in them each one of them independent dependent being.