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

by Gertrude Stein

  I have not been very interesting in explaining being in men and women in my feeling as I am just now having it a good deal in me. That is quite certain, sometime later I will do it again. Now I will begin with the being in Alfred Hersland. I am not yet quite full up with the being in him. Again I am beginning waiting. Again I am beginning a little to feel him. I am still hoping to be more certain in my feeling. I am waiting and waiting, I have not in me now any impatient feeling. Pieces in being, whole ones in being, words saying what I am wanting, words having existence in them to my feeling, Alfred Hersland and the being in him and the kind he was of men and women all these things will come soon to be more completely in me, that is certain.

  Alfred Hersland was of a kind of men and women. This is now some description of that kind of them.

  Some one seems to be talking in such a very different kind of way to mostly every one than I am ever hearing from that one and sometimes then I do not think of any one really telling me what that other one has been saying, at least it is a very difficult thing to realise that one can have such a free talking in him when always I have not heard it coming out of him. For many years I was slowly learning that very often some one is not talking in my hearing the way he is talking when some one else is listening. For very many it is a very difficult thing to be realising the effect they have on men and women. I have often been listening again and again to some one, have been very much with them and always then they have, that one a certain kind of way of talking that seems then to be the completely natural way of talking in them, I have seen such of them talking from suffering, from excited feeling, from happy feeling in them, from gayety and from being very serious inside them and then some one tells me about them about such a one that that one says such and such a thing in talking is always saying such and such a kind of thing always in talking and that is then to me astonishing, very astonishing, and then sometime I realise it of them slowly that such a one, that one, can be saying that thing, always having such a kind of talking coming out of them that it is a natural thing in them and slowly then always then I am always learning how each one is talking to every one, and more and more then slowly then I am listening.

  A little again now to me each one is a whole one sometime. A good deal to me now yet each one is a piece of living and always inside them is their own being. Always to me there are kinds in men and women that is certain and now then to begin again describing the kind of one Alfred Hersland is in living, all the kinds there are of that kind of them, all the kinds of ways there are in me of learning them of feeling them.

  There is a kind of a kind of them and Alfred Hersland was one of this kind of a one, one of the kind of them that are one kind of the engulfing resisting kind of them that have it mostly all of them to have it that mostly every one knowing them feels it of them knows it in them that they are a piece of being and always they have it in them very many of them to be very alive inside them, to be to themselves a being very much living and aspiring, very much really existing. There is a kind of every kind there is of being that have it in them to be a piece of being very much to every one and those then those of that kind of them are active inside them in being, are active and aspiring, are very completely live ones in their existing and these then are a good deal to a good many knowing them completely a piece of being and as I am saying there are some kinds of every general kind there is in men and women of all the kinds of them there are some kinds of each kind of them that have this in them the being to mostly every one knowing them as pieces of a being and as I am saying some of these kinds of them are very active and aspiring in their being and their living and Alfred Hersland was one of such of them and now I am beginning inquiring into the being of such of them into the being of all of such of them who have it in them to be to very many knowing them pieces of being and having active and completely aspiring being in them completely and continuously aspiring being in them. Alfred Hersland then was such a one. As I was saying he was of the engulfing resisting being, as I was saying he had active and aspiring being in him, as I was saying he was mostly to every one ever knowing him a piece of being and this is now to be a history of the living in him, a description of the being in him, an inquiring into the connection in being between him and all those other ones that like him are pieces of being to mostly every one knowing them. There are a very great many men and women that are such of them. Alfred Hersland was of these then was such a one this is now then again the continuing of realising the kind of them that have it in them to be a piece of being to mostly every one knowing them. Alfred Hersland as I am saying all his living was such a one, was one of this kind of them.

  Some one has milk brought to the house by the milkman and it is wasted and yet always that one is continuing having that amount of milk brought in because that one is thinking that sometime that one will be a sick one and then if the milkman has not the habit of bringing milk every day to that one then when that one is a sick one that one will not have milk brought every day by a milkman. It will be too late then to be beginning then when that one is so sick that one cannot go out to order anything. One having in that one a feeling that nothing should be wasted by any one living can have such a way of doing with a milkman bringing milk for that one. Such a one can have it that that one never throws away anything, never wastes anything in living and always there is more milk there than that one can be using in the daily living, in a kind of a way this is very common, not about milk left, but about a way of feeling in living and a way of acting. This is in a way common. Mostly then I have just now a feeling mostly such a one is part of a being. Mostly just now I have a good deal of such feeling that every one is not a whole one that each one is not ever a complete one. One quite young one was loving another one and that one was saying to the one that one was loving, I only love them like you with dark hair and brown eyes for I am a blond one and I could only be loving a dark one. Then this one saw a picture of another one, I could love that one said this one. But that one is a blond one, the one this one was thinking of loving told this one and you just said you could only love a dark one, yes that is true but I think I could love that one, and this is very common, and always there are very many having it always in them that they are a piece of being and always each one is a whole one in the sense that each one is being really in them is existing and sometimes then very often there is to me not any kind of a whole one really in any one and anything and now I am not really caring any more anyway about this thing, about being being a whole one in any one in any way.

  Always there are very many of every kind there is in men and women who are to mostly every one knowing them pieces of living, they are themselves too inside them. Perhaps Alfred Hersland was one of these, I am now beginning a description of the kind of being the kind he is of men and women have in them.

  These then all of them have it in them that they are resisting and some of them are engulfing in resisting and some of them are slowly resisting and many of them are superficially attacking and all of them have it in them to some way own those they need for loving.

  Mostly then these the resisting kind in men and women have it in them to feel very strongly the completely existing of everything, they have it in them to be certain that everything in a way is made out of real earth the way it was done to make Adam that is to say the resisting kind of them in their feeling have it to be certain that a thing is existing more than that a thing has a use and can give to them an emotion. These have it in them then mostly that emotion is not as poignant in them as sensation, that is then their way of being although as I have been saying some of such of them can be engulfing, some vacant in them, some certain that to be them is to be attacking to be quick and poignant in emotion and to be that to mostly every one seeing them doing their living. In a way though always it is true of all of them all of those having in them this being I am now describing, that they have a slow sure feeling that everything is made out of earth and has that kind of very certain existing. Sometime I am hopi
ng to make it completely clear inside me and in my expressing the two kinds there are in men and women and all the kinds there are of these two kinds of them. To begin again with the kind Alfred Hersland was in living, the kind he was and some of the kids more or less connected in kind with his kind of them. I am going on now with a history of him, a complete history of him.

  Some always are lying when any one is asking anything and then they come to be saying I don't know that thing and then they come to telling the true story about that thing. That is the way they do about everything about anything and this is quite common.

  It is very hard to know it of any one whether they are lying that is to say it is very hard to know it in any one whether they are knowing the relation between what they are saying and what had happened what is happening to them. It is a very difficult thing to know it of any one whether they, to themselves, are saying what is not what they are thinking. Lying, stupid being in men and women, religion, aspiration, sensitiveness to any one to anything in men and women, appreciation and enthusiasm, emotion and being afraid in them of something of anything of everything of any one, of almost every one, all these then are very interesting in men and women and very often, very very often it is a necessary thing to know all the being every bit of the being in any one to know it of them what they have in them of these things inside them of lying and aspiration and stupid being and virtuous feeling and important feeling and religion and fear and realisation of material existing. It is necessary then to know of some all the being in them to be certain of them whether they are lying, whether they are feeling, whether they are believing, whether they are understanding, whether they are afraid, whether they are good, whether they are bad, whether they are important inside in them to themselves inside them. It is a very difficult thing then to know the being really in mostly every one. Very often when some one is knowing the complete being of some one that one is still only a piece of a being, there is not in the being of that one a quality of completion, there is no reason why that one from the being in that one should keep on existing, should have kept on existing and when that one is a dead one it is an accidental kind of thing that that one should be an ended one, it is not a completed or a cut off thing the ended one, and that is a very common thing to be feeling about many men and many women. This is a kind of feeling almost every one knowing him had about Alfred Hersland as I have been saying again and again.

  I will now give some description of a considerable number of men and women of kinds connected in kind with the kind of men and women of which Alfred Hersland was one. There will be now some description of each one of a considerable number of men and women each of a kind of men and women of one kind of the kinds of them that are connected in kind with the kind of them of which Alfred Hersland was one. In the description of these there will be an explanation with the description of each one of them of the way each one is a complete one sometimes to some one or not a complete one.

  There will then now be a description of a considerable number of men and women, there will be then now some further expression of the feeling some one every one has about some one about every one. There will be now perhaps more understanding of the way each one is or is not sometime a complete one. There will now perhaps be some understanding of lying, aspiration, religion, feeling, being, thinking, in a considerable number of men and women, in a number of kinds of the resisting kind of being in men and women. To really again begin then. Later there will be a complete history of Alfred Hersland, later there will be a complete history of Julia Dehning.

  To begin now then just now with little descriptions of a considerable number of men and women who all of them are some kind of the resisting kind in men and women. To begin this then.

  Some as I have said already somewhere earlier in my writing, some of the resisting kind of them have it in them to have generalised feeling that is of ideal aspiration and concrete feeling that is in continual action and of very material seizing and holding. Some as I have been saying already in my description have it in them to be completely certain that to be dead is to be really truly a dead one and always then perhaps to be a dead one is not to be really truly a dead one and it is a good thing then to be married to one who is certain that to be dead is not to be really a truly dead one. This is true of some this is true of the first one that I am now describing. This one was not meek not aggressive not arrogant not egotistical in living, this one could have resisting in him, this one like very many having such a kind of being was fairly slow in action and in feeling, if he was not slow in feeling and in acting and in listening such a one would not be certain that he himself was doing that acting, listening, feeling, such a one would be thinking that something was happening, it would be over and that one would not be realising that he himself was listening, feeling, acting, and this is very common with many having in them dependent independent resisting being. This first one then that I am now beginning describing had resisting being as fairly sensitive being as slowly reacting being as not at all engulfing being, as a complete being only this one was not quite entirely certain that to be dead was to be a really dead one and he liked it that the wife that he had always with him was certain that to be dead was not to be at all a dead one. This one that I am describing, this first one had resisting being as completely sensitive, fairly slowly reacting, this one was not meek not aggressive in living, this one was persistently and patiently and in detail dominating in family living, this one was very just in thinking and in judging, this one had not very much imagination and was impersonal in feeling, this one had pleasant affection, this one had completely honest action, this one had a good deal of fear a good deal of affection in him, this one was quite a good man in living, this one was pretty certain that everything is existing, this one had loving and such things reasonably in him, this one could have it in him to have it that he found himself even a better one than he really was in living but really he was a very good one in living and though a little he had the abstract conception of himself as a more ideal one than he was in concrete feeling, mostly he was realising pretty completely all that he was really experiencing, only a little he was not realising that having a little fear in him that to be dead was not to be really a dead one did not make in him an experiencing that he was a better one than actual living in him made him. He was as I was saying glad to be having a wife who was completely certain that knowing that to be dead was not to be at all a really dead one made every one a very much better one than each one really was in living. This is then a complete history of the being in this one. This one then was a sensitive, slowly reacting, fairly affectionate, quite good, reasonably just and a little fearful and quite impersonal and somewhat loving quite very good resisting independent dependent one. This one was pretty completely a whole one to himself and to mostly every one, this one then is different from the one I am next going to be describing in being a completely slowly reacting completely sensitive one.

  This one that I am now describing was of a kind of one that are very many of them quite successful in living. This is now a description of several of them. This is a kind of resisting dependent independent men and women.

  These have it in them mostly to make every one feel it about them that they are very strong ones in living, they have solidity in them, they are like wood or iron and have a solid being in them and every one knowing them is certain that they are good ones and they are independent and intelligent and loyal and not timeserving and yet always they are succeeding in living succeeding in loving, a little arrogant but not unpleasant to mostly every one knowing them, very successfully knowing successful people in their living though not seeking to know such ones, it just comes to them. Some of such ones are not completely successful in living, some of such ones have a pride that is a little more sensitive than the being really in them, some have a romantic imagination that is too active for the being in them but mostly this kind of them are very successful in living and this is to be now a little more description of this kind of
them.

  Resisting being in them is as it were solid and firm and hard but never aggressive being in them. It is not profoundly sensitive in them, it is as it is with wood when in a tree it is living and then when it is completely useful as a piece of wood to be used for working into a shape for using and it is a solid thing then, an honest thing then, a thing to be adapted for good using, a solid reliable thing then, a completely existing thing then, a thing sensitive in the sense that it repays good handling but not a thing sensitive in the sense that a tree living having living growing being is a sensitive thing. These then this kind of resisting men and women who I am now describing have this in them and they have it in them some of them so completely this being in them that they are to many knowing them completely strong men, completely geniuses in living without any of the weaknesses in them that geniuses most generally have in them, that men successful in living most generally have in them. These men are very interesting, I know now five of such of them and only one of these five of them is not really a successful one and that one has a pride in him and a romantic imagination in him that is too sensitive for the solid dead wood being in him. This kind of them of men are very interesting to me in the being in them, they are very pleasant companions mostly always all of them loyal, reliable, delicate in their feeling, honest, earnest, never toadying, decently prudent and decently courageous in living, always giving to every one a conviction that they are a very strong one and they are mostly always succeeding very well in anything that is a life work to them and though they are laborious in their working they are really pretty quick and graceful in their working generally although strength is the quality in them that seems strongest in them but really strength in them is the solidity of block wood, bar iron in them really then these in their living can be completely adapted to their living, these then can be completely succeeding in living, these then can have sentimental feeling, and pride in them and romantic imagination but really this cannot at the bottom of them disturb them they are completely solid they can be completely adapted to living. I will come back again and again to describe this kind in men and women. I will come back again and again to every kind there is of men and women. These then that I have been describing have a lack in them, they are complete enough in living, they are each one completely different from every other one, they are themselves inside them but in a true sense they have not in them individual being, they are the very cream of schoolmen the very best thing there can be of any one following a master and working with him. They are individual to him, they are themselves completely inside them to themselves in them. These then are very good men mostly, loyal and earnest and efficient and successful in living. They are solidly learning and solidly resisting to be winning. Their working in its resulting is very often a quick and graceful and a little a dull thing. They are sensitive and strong and active to mostly every one having to do with them. They interest me very much, mostly unless I am a very sad one every one is to me very interesting. Sometime certainly I will tell more and then again some other time I will know more and then sometime I will tell more and so on and so on of this kind in men and women.