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

by Gertrude Stein

  As I was saying she was then not really very interesting to any one. She might have been a little interesting a couple of evenings to Harry Brenner but she never really was interesting to him.

  As I was saying she was then of their daily living and their daily feeling, the poorer people near them, and she was with them a good deal in the day-time and she was with them very often in the evening. As I was saying sometimes her father remembered that she should not be out with them in the evening and he would forbid her going out that evening and he would lecture her brother Alfred because he did not take care of his sister who should not go out in the evenings in the way she was doing and the father was full up then as I was saying with impatient feeling and then that would be the end of his interfering with Martha's daily living and daily feeling and Martha's going out in the evening. The mother Mrs. Hersland was then as I was saying in the history of her living lost then among her children and the father of them. Always then in her young living Martha was of them the people near them and this was of her until she was almost a young woman.

  As I was saying she was of them the poorer people in her daily living and in her daily feeling, as I was saying she was not so interesting to any of them as they were to each other then and this was mostly because of the future living there was for her in her and a little perhaps from the way being was in her but mostly it was from the future living of her that was naturally to be different from that of those she was then knowing. As I was saying she was not so interesting to any of them as they were to each other then and she was not feeling and living and understanding anything really in the way they were doing then. As I was saying she almost might have been interesting to them from her almost being interesting a couple of evenings to Harry Brenner who was one of them but she did not come to be really interesting to him. Perhaps it was the future living in her that made her not come to be really interesting to Harry Brenner then although there was almost a beginning of being interested in him. That was the end of it though then, she never as I was saying was really interesting to any of them then.

  So then this was the being, the living, the feeling, the understanding in Martha Hersland up to her almost being a young woman this that I have been describing. Her father as I was saying had many ideas about her education and then he had impatient feeling in him that she was not the kind of daughter he had wanted to have as a daughter to him. The mother as I was saying then had only a dim feeling then of the being, and the living, and the feeling there was then in her children. Things were a little dim in her then but to herself then she and they and the father of them were still then of the living that was the natural living for them. To herself inside her they were never at any time neither she nor her husband nor her children nor their family ever really cut off from the living that was the natural living to them. Really she was then lost among them, that was the real being in her then, really the being in herself and in her husband and her children was really then a very dim thing to her then but always there was in her the feeling as I was saying of being in herself and in her husband and her children part of the well to do living which was the natural being for her, the only being she ever had had, to her feeling, in her.

  So then as I was saying Martha Hersland in her daily feeling, in her daily living was of the daily living and the daily feeling of the people living in small houses near the Hersland family then living in the part of Gossols where no other rich people were living. Her father as I was saying was of their daily living and their daily feeling too somewhat then and on Sundays when he walked and stopped to talk to them and sat down in the houses with the women when they were cooking and ate something there in the kitchen with them and felt inside him a feeling that they were women there in a room with him. Then it was to him a good thing, then when he had this kind of feeling of them the women in him, then he thought and said it was a good thing Martha should learn how to do things, cooking and sewing and living and feeling like the women he was seeing then having as women in him to him, then when he was sitting with them in the kitchen or sometimes in their little gardens. Then he said Martha should learn the living they had in them, and he said it to them and then he said it to Martha when he saw her. This was one way he had of feeling about her being of the daily living and the daily feeling of these people living near them. Then sometimes of an evening as I was saying he would see Martha leaving the house and he would suddenly remember then she should not go out of an evening, that was no way a daughter of his in his position should he acting and then he would tell her he would see to it that she should stay home and he would employ some one to look after her and make of her the kind of educated person that it was right he should have for a daughter. And so as I was saying Martha Hersland until she was almost a young woman was in her daily living and in her daily feeling of them the people living in the small houses near the ten acre place where the Hersland family were living then and she was with them and in the houses of them a good deal in the daytime and she was a good deal with all of them in the evenings in the later part of her young living and as I was saying she was not really then interesting to any of them and as I was saying she was not then really feeling and really living and really understanding the living and the feeling that they had together then amongst them. This was the daily living and the daily feeling in Martha Hersland and the being in Martha Hersland this that I have been just describing when it came that she had an awakening into realler feeling and then she came to have a real attacking moment and it lasted to her beginning her university education. This is now a little description of this in her.

  As I was saying she had a being in her that was mostly in a condition always all her living of being in a state of confusion inside her. This gave to her always very much nervous being in her, this made her to every one often very stupid in resisting and very slow in beginning and very foolish in not remembering anything that she should have been learning in her living. This will come out very clearly in the description of her living with her husband and then later with her father after she had come back to live with him after all the trouble she had in her living. It will come out very clearly then the being in her, the confusion always in her that made her to every one knowing her mostly always very stupid in resisting and really very slow and yet very jerky and unexpected in beginning and very foolish in not remembering what having been experiencing something any one would have supposed she would have been really learning.

  Now there will be a little more description of her daily living, of the living and the feeling of the living and the feeling of the people in the little houses near the Hersland family then in her young living and the ending in her of this living and this feeling.

  The kind of being she had in her I have already a little been describing, the kind of a whole one that she was and the nature and the kind of way her being was active in her. There has been too a little description of how much she had heard and how little she knew in living. As I was saying she was not then really very interesting to any one. No one knew anything very much then of what she was feeling about anything then and she did not know what she felt then about anything in living and nobody knew what she felt then about living and really she did not clearly then feel anything.

  This was the way she was then when one day when she was alone in another part of the town where she had gone to take a lesson in singing she saw a man hit a woman with an umbrella, and the woman had a red face partly in anger and partly in asking and the man wanted the woman to know then that he wanted her to leave him alone then in a public street where people were passing and Martha saw this and this man was for her the ending of the living I have been describing that she had been living. She would go to college, she knew it then and understand everything and know the meaning of the living and the feeling in men and in women. She would go to college and she told it then to her father and her mother and they had no objection, no one was paying very much attention and she began her preparation and she came to know some other yo
ung girls and young boys, not rich ones like those it was natural she should then be knowing but more of her natural kind than any she had known before in her living. One of them John Davidson she knew very well then and he and she played music and sang together and then she was ready and then she went to college for more education. This is to be now more history of, in her, the ending of her older young living and her subsequent going to college and of the man she met there and who there married her.

  As I was saying Martha then was once a very little one a baby, and then a little one and then a young girl and then a woman and then she was older and then later there was an ending to her and always all through this living in her she was the same whole one inside her and to every one who knew her.

  In the description of her that I have been writing so far Martha has been a very little one, a baby, and then a little one and then a young girl and then about to become a young woman and always then in a way to herself inside her and to every one knowing her she had been the same whole one.

  This was then as I was saying in a way always true she was always the same whole one inside her and to every one ever knowing her.

  In some the nature in them is clearer when they are very young, in some when they are young, in some when they are not so young, in some when they are getting older, in some when they are old ones. Martha was mostly always to every one who knew her the same whole one, when she was a very little one, a little one, an older one, a very old one, mostly always she was to every one about the same kind of a whole one.

  And this in a way always was true of her, all her living she was the same whole one, there was very little change in her, mostly all her living the whole of her was repeating completely, when she was learning, when she was loving, when in her later living she was still struggling. She was then all her living the same whole one, there was the same concentration of being in her, the same the proportion of one thing to the other things active in her.

  As I was saying this was in the main true of her, she was of the kind of men and women and there are always many many millions of them and they are of every kind in a way of men and women, that is of independent dependent or dependent independent kind of them who are all their living the same whole one who always are repeating the complete whole thing they always are in themselves and to every one, who have the same concentration of the being in them always all their living when they are babies, when they are young ones, when they are older ones, when they are old ones, who have the same proportion of one thing to the other things active in them every minute in their living.

  As I was saying Martha Hersland was of this kind of them though there were moments in her living when it seemed a little different in her for sometimes she really got into motion and mostly as I was saying motion was just confusion in her, it never came to movement in her it just was mixing up of being inside her.

  As I was saying she was of the independent dependent kind of being those having in them attacking as their natural way of winning fighting, as their natural way of winning in loving, and as I was saying mostly in her, commotion in her did not make an actual attack by her for her and this was not there really to herself inside her, to herself there was real movement in her, but to every one then there was only stupid resisting and nervous being in her and this was mostly the whole history of her.

  As I was saying this was not quite the whole history of her, it did come to happen in her, sometimes in the living, in the history of her, that the shock of commotion in her was so strong as to give a forward movement to her. As I was saying that happened once to her when she was a very little one when she threw down the umbrella, it happened every now and then in her, it happened, as I was saying, when she saw the man hitting the woman in the street with his umbrella to rid himself then of her and of the asking in her. When she saw this it was not a horror she had in her, really she had not any very certain feeling in her, mostly in her living, as I was saying, she had not any very certain feeling, mostly as I was saying it was confusion, excitement and nervousness she had in her when there was movement inside her, then as I was saying, when she saw the man hit the woman with an umbrella and she was just then passing, she had not then as I was saying any distinct feeling then in her about what she had been seeing, not then and not then later, but it gave a motion to her, it gave her direction to getting for herself a university education.

  This then that I have been describing is the being in Martha and now there will be more history of her.

  As I was just saying that which I have been describing is the being in Martha Hersland. I have been describing the living and the feeling she had in her until now she was almost a young woman and a new life was to begin for her.

  As I was saying she started then her preparation to get for herself a college education. As I was saying no one was objecting. Her father Mr. Hersland was not very much interested just then in his children. She had teachers and she could be taught enough by them to pass her entrance examination. She began a little then to know other kinds of young girls and boys than those that she had until then been knowing. She played duets in the evening and sang with John Davidson who was preparing to go away to get an eastern education. She was less and less and then almost not at all with them the people living near the Hersland family then, and then as I was saying she went to get her college education. This is now to be more history of her and how she came to have a lover and how he came to marry her and how he came then to leave her and what happened then to him and what happened then to her. In short this is now to be a history of all the living there ever was in her, all the being in her.

  As I was saying there was not then very much change in the being in her, she was always then the same whole one, at first there was a little more movement in her, she learned a little at first how to have definite feeling in her, she learned that in the college life around her but it was not really the being in her and all this will come out in the history of her. This is now then more history of her. Now then there will begin to be a little history of another, of one of those who came to know her, who came to the same college where she was learning to do the things I have just been describing. This is now the beginning of the history of him as I am saying. This is now a little description of the living there had been in Phillip Redfern.

  There was then in the living of Martha Hersland the being born in the hotel where the Hersland family was living when Mr. David Hersland came to Gossols to make for himself a great fortune and brought with him his wife little Fanny Hissen who was to know there the Shilling family who where to make in her the beginning of the feeling of herself inside her. There was then in the living of Martha Hersland that her father Mr. David Hersland and her mother Fanny Hersland came together to make her and she was born in the hotel where Mr. and Mrs. Hersland were living when they first came to Gossols where Mr. Hersland was to make for himself a great fortune and where Mrs. Hersland was to have mostly a living that was not the way of living that it would have been natural for her to be having. Martha was born then in the hotel and Mr. Hersland was just beginning then to succeed in winning fighting and Mrs. Hersland was beginning then through knowing the Shilling family, Sophie Shilling, Pauline Shilling and the mother of them to have a little in her to herself inside the feeling of herself to herself in her that it was not really natural for her to have ever really in her. Then in the living of Martha Hersland she was a little one in the ten acre place where the Hersland family lived a little later and there it was that Mr. Hersland was winning fighting and then having impatient feeling in him and then being full up with impatient feeling and then having in him beginning failing in winning and then having in him only beginning and there Mrs. Hersland had always more and more in her from the for her queer poor people near her and the servants and governesses in the house with her the feeling of importance of herself to herself inside her and then she had there in her the beginning of the weakening in her the being lost among her children and her husband living in the house w
ith her. In the living of Martha Hersland she was a little one in the ten acre place and she was then living there the half-city half-country living of the people around her and she went to school then and she was healthy enough then and happy enough then and she was always then getting older and getting bigger and she had some troubles then and always she was of them the people in the small houses near the ten acre place where she was living then and she had always the living in her and the being in her I was describing and sometimes she got a little fatter and sometimes a little thinner and sometimes she was happy enough and often she was not so happy and mostly always she was healthy and sometimes she had uneasy feelings in her and often her father was a trouble to her and often the governess was troublesome to her and mostly her mother was not very important for her and she went on and the family living of the Hersland family was changing some as I was saying and a little Martha was changing in her as the family living was changing around her and when it came to her to want her own education no one was paying much attention to her, each one of the Hersland family had then themselves inside them to themselves each one, the father as I was saying and the mother as I was saying and Alfred Hersland and his brother David as I will be saying in the history of the two of them. Always a little then Martha had trouble with each one of them, the family living in the house together, her father and her mother and her brother Alfred and David the younger brother but mostly then they none of them were really important to her, she was all taken up then with the being in her, mostly each one of them then the family living together were taken up then by themselves then each one by the being in them and that was the history of the Hersland family, then when Martha went to college for more education. This was then the living of the Hersland family when Martha was having it in her that she was a young woman, this was the history of all of them then, that they were each one of them taken up with the being inside of them then, the father Mr. Hersland with much impatient feeling then in him, the mother with important being in her from the governess Madeleine Wyman who came often to see her and from having weakening commencing then in her, Martha from the having seen the man hit the woman with the umbrella and so then having in her the need of a college education for her, the brother Alfred who was then beginning to do things that were full of interesting feeling for him, the younger brother David who was beginning then and always from then it went on in him to find the meaning for him of something in each day of living that would make living have meaning for him, each one of them then the Hersland family then were each one of them all taken up with themselves inside them and this was the history of them as I was saying when Martha went away from them to get a college education. Each one of the Hersland family was then each one of them too much taken up with the being inside themselves then to pay much attention to another one. Martha went away to college then, as I was saying, and there she was learning to be like them the young men and women of her generation and there as I was saying she came to know Phillip Redfern.