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

by Gertrude Stein

  It is a nice thing, it is mostly pleasant for every one when the eldest son is the eldest of the children, in family living. This was not the case with Alfred Hersland, he was the eldest son, he was not the oldest of the three Hersland children, Martha was the oldest of them, it is very certain that mostly in family living it is a pleasanter thing when the oldest one of the children is the oldest son, this most generally is pleasanter for every one, for that one who is the oldest one, it is not such a pleasant thing for that one when a woman a girl a sister is the older one when he is the oldest son, this mostly then makes it a little a difficult thing when he is a son and not the oldest one of the children, in family living. Very often in family living when one is not the oldest of the three children but is the oldest son, very often then he is such a one as I am soon going to be describing as Alfred Hersland. Very often in family living when one is not the oldest of the children but is the oldest son, very often then that one is such a one as Alfred Hersland was in his living. I know now three of such of them who have it in them to be of the kind of them that Alfred Hersland is and who have it in their living that they were the oldest son and that they had a sister who was a few years older and that put them in a position that I will now soon be describing in the early living, in the beginning of being a young man in the living of Alfred Hersland.

  Alfred Hersland then is now to every one a young one, this is now a history of him. He was a good enough looking one, many said he was a very good looking one.

  Sometimes in reading, sometimes in thinking, sometimes in realising, sometimes in a kind of a way in feeling, knowing repeating knowing always everything is repeating, knowing that there will be going on living is saddening. Sometime then in reading, in realising anything, a little sometimes in feeling something it is saddening to be thinking, feeling, realising that always everything, is repeating, that sometime some one is a young one and that now some one is in their middle living and that now some one is an old one and sometimes it is a queer feeling in one this and then not anything, not waiting, reading, dying, being a dead one, living, being a young one, being one is a real thing inside in one then and always then it is certain that always every one is living and every one has their being in them and every one is feeling thinking knowing something and always then it is certain that every one is like some other one and everything is existing and it is saddening then and existing is not a real thing then to some one feeling then every one as existing and being themselves inside them and some one being like some one and each one being either a young one or a middle aged one or an old one and sometimes then this is a little a dreary thing and sometimes then it is a very queer thing and mostly then it is all then something and mostly then it is certain that everything is existing and mostly then it is inside in some one that not anything is a real thing, that it is dreary to be writing.

  I am feeling always that I am not certain that I am ever really full up with any one in being as a young one, it is such a difficult thing to be a young one inside one, an older one inside one, to be any age inside in one, I am feeling that it is a very queer thing to be knowing some one who is a young one, to be knowing any one, I am not then having any one inside me now in my realising, not myself inside me in my feeling, I am living that is certain, I am now beginning a little again feeling that I am not yet full up with the being in Alfred Hersland. I am now again beginning waiting.

  I have not any more any one in me to my feeling. Always then there is Alfred Hersland and I know very well what kind of being there is in him. I have not any one in me to my feeling. Not Alfred Hersland then and and so again now I am beginning waiting.

  How can any one know it in them that they are a young one, that they are a middle aged one, that they are an old one. Mostly there is not any way to know it inside in one that one is a young one that one is an older one that one is an old one, there is not any way of knowing such a thing inside in one, mostly then each one must be told it by some one and mostly then that one does not then really know it in them. Mostly then there is not any way any one by themselves can know it in them that they are a young one a very young one, a young one not such a very young one, an older one, a good deal older one, an old one, a very old one. There is not then any way any one can know it inside them the difference in them of being a young one or an older one when some one is not somehow telling it to them, some other one, this can be a telling by that other one this can be a telling by the other one because the other one is existing at another stage in living. I have been seeing a young man and have been talking very much with him and he is quite a young man and he is very much like one I was seeing very much when I was quite a young one. Now this one that I am now seeing is quite a young one that is to me very certain and there is in me a feeling that to any one to himself now there is not very much meaning in many things he is now always saying and yet I know it by remembering that that one that I was knowing very well when I was quite a young one and who is so very like this one, I know that that one was not then to himself or to me then a young one, I must date it to myself to be really certain that that other one who is in being just like this one was then such a young one, young as this one is now in his being, it is certain that that other one was such a young one, he is not now to my remembering of that time a young one, he was at that time to my feeling as now I am remembering he was at that time to my feeling then not at all a very young one, he really was then as old as I am now in my feeling, for it is certain not any one is any age inside them to their feeling, every one is inside them living, that is about all there can ever be in them really of feeling of themselves inside them, that they are living inside in them, they cannot be inside in them any age inside them not any one and that makes it a very hard thing to be really realising a young one or an old one or any one, or one's own self inside one, and now I am not going to be doing this thing with Alfred Hersland I am now outgoing to be telling the being in him and the living in him and what he did in living with any other one. Not any one in them is to themselves any age inside them. They know in them by looks and looking at other ones and talking and knowing things they are thinking, have been thinking, by things they were and will be doing, by realising by an effort in them or simply in them things happening in them by remembering but really then not any one is to themselves anything but only just living inside them, that is all feeling of themselves inside them that they can have in them with not anything to help them by telling them or by their seeing others then to help them.

  Always then Alfred Hersland had a being in him that now I am beginning describing. Always Alfred Hersland was living to his ending. This is the being then that is in every one, they are existing until there is an end of them. Each one has their own being in them, each one is of a kind in men and women. Alfred Hersland was of a kind of men and women as I was saying, he was the eldest son but not the eldest child as I was saying and that had some effect on him as I was saying it does have on those that are eldest sons but not the eldest child in family living, and Alfred Hersland was all through his early living living with poor people near him and in a way he was of them, he did things with them as I will now be telling and then he left home to go to Bridgepoint for his college training and before that he was at the stage of being very instructive and very desirous to be the head of his family and a good citizen and after he left he was a tender feeling in his mother's living and then he had some kinds of loving in him and then as I was saying he came to be married to Julia Dehning and later then his father was losing his great fortune and then too Martha was beginning having trouble in living and later then his brother David was influencing him and later then Alfred Hersland was having very much trouble in his married living and many people came then to be important to him and then there was more and more living in him and this is now to be a complete history of him. I am now almost all through with waiting. I am now beginning to be free with the being of him inside me in my feeling. I am now completely certain that not any one is to himself insid
e him in his or her feeling any age inside them.

  Alfred Hersland was the eldest son and the second child of the Hersland family and the Hersland family then were living on a ten acre place in a part of Gossols where no other rich people were living and the Herslands were then rich people, Mr. Hersland was then a very rich one, Mrs. Hersland had it then and always that she was naturally a natural part of rich living, but being rich ones was then not inside them as a feeling important in the Hersland children living, they were then all three of the living of the poor people in small houses and a half country half-city living feeling. Alfred Hersland was then such a one in his living, and living was then the important thing in him and slowly then family living came to be important to him, but now in the beginning when he was a very young one, family living was not important in him. This is now to be a complete history of the living in him all his living. When he was quite a very young one family living his family position was not of any importance in him, then it came to be more important, then very important in him, then after his marrying Julia Dehning very much less important in him. Always all the time he was living in Gossols even when family living was important to him he was living with the poor people near him. Later after he married Julia Dehning he in a way came back to such a living although they were then different ones he was then knowing.

  Mostly it is very hard realising about another one that that one is not thinking, is not thinking when it would seem that thing is a thing they would naturally be doing. It is very hard for any one who is ever doing writing to be really realising that very many are not doing thinking, remembering, it is a very hard thing to be realising about other ones and then it is a very hard thing to be realising that some who would naturally be thinking the kind of way one writing is thinking are not ever thinking that kind of a way about anything, about something. It is a very hard thing then knowing what any one ever is seeing, feeling, thinking, I am all alone now and I have then an unreal lonesome feeling, it is like a little boy who was howling and they all rushed out to help him, I am all alone, he said, and all of a sudden it had scared him. It is not frightening to some but it is hard work for them then for such a one may then perhaps be almost in need of beginning again.

  Every one was a whole one in me and now a little every one is in fragments inside me. There are a very great many not now in me, mostly every one now in me is in pieces inside me. Mostly not any one now is a whole one inside me. Alfred Hersland is in fragments inside me, I will now begin again and it will be a describing of pieces then, pieces of perhaps a whole one. Perhaps not any one really is a whole one inside them to themselves or to any one. Perhaps every one is in pieces inside them and perhaps every one has not completely in them their own being inside in them. Perhaps each one is in pieces and repeating is coming out of them that is certain but as repeating of pieces in them. Repeating is always coining out of each one that is certain, in all moments of despairing that is certain, that every one always is repeating. That every one always is repeating is a certain thing.

  I am very certain of that thing that every one always is repeating the being in them, sometimes it is to me as pieces that do not make any meaning as a whole one. Mostly always sometime each one is a whole one to me, very often each one is in pieces to me. Always every one is repeating, repeating and repeating the being in them and always repeating is coming out of each one, always all through all the living they are doing, always all their living and sometimes it is exciting to know it in them, sometimes a very dreary thing, sometimes a very discouraging feeling for living, sometimes a friendly one and sometimes then it makes of some one not such an important one as one had thought them, sometimes then it makes of some one a more important one than one had thought them, sometimes it is a habit in one to expect it of them the repeating from some one.

  Now then, mostly every one is a good deal in pieces to my feeling, Alfred Hersland then now is such a one to my feeling, a good deal in pieces to my feeling. Always all his being is always repeating in all his living. He is a good deal in pieces to my feeling.

  He was not then the oldest of the Hersland children, he was younger than Martha and that always makes a difference in a boy's living, not that Martha was very important to him in his early living but there came to be for him when it came to be in him when he was a going to be young man and was coming to feel like a good citizen and having strong family feeling, it came to him then to be directing and he was not then the eldest of the Hersland children. He did help Martha some then, he did help her a little to be able to go to college as she was wanting to do then but they were not very interesting ever to each other Martha and Alfred Hersland, a little then when she was to go to college Martha was a little interesting to Alfred then and very much later in her living when Alfred was having trouble long after he had been married to Julia Dehning he was a little then a little interesting to Martha who was then taking care of her father in Gossols after he had lost their great fortune. Alfred then was a little really interested in Martha when she was leaving home for a college education, later he and his brother David were a little interesting one to the other one when they were living in Bridgepoint together after Alfred was married and then later, and the mother Mrs. Hersland had a tender feeling in her for the clothes Alfred had left with her and the room he had slept in, when he left the family living to go to Bridgepoint to do his studying, and Mr. Hersland he never had in him a very certain important feeling about Alfred excepting a little when he might have been needing him or when a little Alfred might be opposing him but really then the three Hersland children not any of them were really important ever to Mr. David Hersland to his feeling. He had sometimes a kind of feeling about one or the other of them because of something, some specific thing, but mostly Mr. Hersland was as big as all the world in his feeling.

  Every one to me just now is in pieces to me. That is to say every one is to me just now as pieces to me. That is to say that each complete one is only as a piece to me, that all there is of each one at anytime in them gives to me a feeling of pieces not of a whole thing, that is to say I am having just now with each one I am knowing or remembering a feeling an emotion from them as if they were each one not a whole thing. I have this perhaps not altogether with every one but I have it just now with a good many of them a good many that I am knowing, knowing now or remembering now and most of the time now I have such a feeling. A little it comes to me I am certain from my realisation that many of them are not completely thinking or feeling the way a complete one of their kind of them would be thinking or feeling. They are thinking and feeling in pieces then now to me to my feeling just now in my emotion and that makes of them to me pieces of being, makes all there is of them of each one, not whole ones, this is very strongly in me just now in my feeling, very very strongly in me, men and women very many of them those I am knowing those I am remembering, not all of them, I do not say that it is true of all of them even just now in my feeling but very many a great many of them are to me just now in pieces to me. There are pieces then and that is whole being, there is a piece then and that is the whole being of some one, they may be, such a one may be completely of one kind of being, but it is only a piece of such a kind of being as that one is in being. It is not such a very joyous feeling, having the emotion of having every one as a piece to one, it does make of everything a thing without ending and all the time then there is not any use of anything keeping on going. Why should anything any one keep on going if not ever at any time anything any one will be a whole one, what is the use of anything or everything keeping on going if not at any time I will not be having a sensation that any one anything will be a whole one, once every one sometime was a whole one, now mostly every one is a piece of a one, not all the being as a complete one and yet every one has their own being in them and putting all of each kind of them together to make a whole one can not be to me a satisfaction, cannot give to me any real satisfaction can not be a satisfactory way in my feeling of having completion of having anything
or any one a whole one cannot give to me any reason why the world should keep on being, there is not any reason if in repeating nothing is giving to me a sensation of a completed one, I have then this in me now and mostly every one I am knowing or remembering is to me just now a piece of a kind of being and every one is themselves inside them, that is always to my feeling certain and so then feeling each one is a piece of a kind of being and always then feeling each one is entirely existing so that each one is not a part of any whole thing I cannot to myself have any very real satisfaction from getting together all the ones there are of a kind of them, to make a whole one, that is, not to my feeling, that cannot give to me an emotion of satisfaction, that is not to my feeling satisfying and so then I am not feeling each one is sometime to me a whole one, no then no, I am now feeling that mostly all of them every one I am knowing every one I am remembering is to me a piece of being and so then there is not any use in the world going on existing so that every one can keep on with repeating a piece of being, not any use at all then to me to my feeling, not any use then really to any one and this is now then the real state of feeling I am now having.

  Alfred Hersland is to me a piece of being, he is not in me a whole one, this is certain, mostly every one is to me a piece of being, every one has their own being in them, Alfred Hersland has his own being in him, alright, I know it of every one, I know it that every one has their own being in them, I know it and always I feel it, I always feel it and I always know it, every one has their own being in them yes every one, every kind of a one, every one that ever was or is or will be living, yes, alright, I know it of every one that every one has their own being in them, Alfred Hersland had his own being in him, yes every one has their own being in them, yes that is alright, I know that of them, I know that very well of them, I know every one has their own being in them, I feel it of them, I know that always in every one, always in each one, always of every one, yes I know that each one has their own being in them and I am saying that mostly every one is a piece of being, not a whole one in them and so then there is not any use of the world going on for any one, and there is not any way of making a complete one of any being by putting together all of some kinds of them all of any kind of them for each one has their own being in them and so after all there is not any way of making a whole one. Every one to me just now is as a piece to me, that is to say each one mostly is not a complete one of anything to my feeling, each one just now to my feeling is a piece of something and that is to me very certain by my very strongly realising in every one the way they are not thinking, feeling a complete thing of their kind in feeling and thinking. Now then Alfred Hersland is a piece of being to me and now I will tell of it the way I feel it in me, the way I feel him and every one just now in me.