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

by Gertrude Stein

  Some are a very long time puzzles to me, this one the musician Mr. Arragon is not a puzzle to me, he is quite completely in me, and all of it is understood inside me, pretty well understood by me inside me, it is the coming out of me that has not been satisfactory. It has come out of me as little pieces never making a complete one, I will be a little slow and then it will come better done, I hope I am certain of this thing. I am not waiting, I am forgetting so that this one can come when this one can come as a satisfactory one without my disturbing this one by any impatience about this one. I have been describing very many men and very many women many of the resisting, some of the attacking kind of them, as I have often been saying there are many kinds of mixing a bottom attacking breaking through resisting nature in the same one, pressing through resisting nature in the same one, acting separately with resisting being in the same one and resisting being in the bottom doing all kinds of twisted complications with attacking being in the same one. There are very many kinds of mixing, I have described some of them, and then there are some and these are certainly very difficult ones in whom the character of the being is completely oppositely acting and there are border line cases where the one is almost the other kind of a one. And sometimes then I think it is all foolishness this I am writing and thinking and feeling and having as important being and then I give in to not thinking or feeling or being an important one and then I see it again and I am simply certain and I am naturally thinking, feeling each one as a kind of a one in the way I have been telling and I am then again a completely important one. Alfred Hersland in his living knew a number of kinds in men and women. I am beginning now very regularly again the history of the living and the being in him.

  Alfred Hersland as I have certainly been realising is of the resisting more or less engulfing kind in men and women. As I was saying those having in them resisting being are those having in them realisation of things as existing as more in them than as things having relation. Those having in them resisting being have not emotion in them having really poignancy in them like sensation. This is then a thing to be now completely believing. Those having in them resisting as their complete way of being in living are those having In them as I was saying earthy being in the way of really being certain that everything that each thing is really an existing thing, these have it in them that completely in them existing is the thing they know inside them that everything each thing really is really existing. As I have, said often there are many variations in this thing and there are those having this being who come from the way of having this being in them to be certain that not anything is really existing and all that is complication and I have been telling I will never be ending my telling of all these kinds of ways of being but again and again I am certain that the resisting kind in men and women have it in them to be certain as a bottom being that really each thing is existing. Now some as I am saying of the resisting kind of them are of an engulfing kind and these too are certain that each thing they are engulfing is really a thing really existing. These then too have it that sensation is in them more poignant than emotion, that a thing existing is nearer knowledge in them than things being in relation. The attacking kind in men and women are just the other way as I have said and I will be saying. The resisting kind in men and women are such then, they have complete realisation naturally in them that things that each thing is really existing. Now see what is true in them. They have this in them, they have curiosity and imagination based in them on the real realisation in them that each thing is existing. Yes. In a kind of them of which Alfred Hersland is one this is not solid in them although the being in them is this kind of being in them. This realisation of things being existing is in such of them but these being comparatively intermittently resisting and engulfing their curiosity and imagination is sometimes quite often disconnected with the realisation that things that each thing is really existing. These can have it in them to be aspiring without being then founded in them on a realisation that each thing is existing, these then can have engulfing passion in them that does not really seize the thing they could be realising as really existing. These then come to be quite considerably in their living that they are a part of a being. Curiosity can in such of them turn into cleverness in living for it is not then based in them on the realisation that each thing is really existing.

  This is being in Alfred Hersland. He liked being with Arragon, he had really musical realisation in him then and always he could have it in him. He liked being with Arragon, liked realising music with him, he had also very much then in him a pleased feeling of being doing everything in living with Arragon that Arragon was doing then in his living. Mostly Alfred Hersland did what he did in his living, did with them what others did in their living as being something he was then doing but there was in him with Arragon a little more important and pleasant feeling of himself to himself inside him by doing with him with Arragon what Arragon was doing then in living. Alfred was beginning then a little too to pass this on to his brother and his sister, this was the beginning of being a little aspiring and also a little being a head of family living in his being. He had really then some realisation of musical meaning, he did then everything he was then doing with Arragon and he was doing then pretty nearly everything Arragon was then doing in living. This then is the beginning the little beginning of middle living in Alfred Hersland. As I was saying Arragon was not then very important in Alfred Hersland, he himself inside him not really yet in being was really the only important thing inside him in Alfred Hersland could be the only important thing really inside him. In a way Alfred was not one really to be deeply influenced by anything and that is a natural thing in him. In his middle middle living he was really more effected by some, all his early middle living, all his young living he certainly had none to be really important to him in him or for him, he was different inside him at different times in this living, sometimes more sometimes less to himself inside him in him, but always then he had his being in him and always then in a way the whole of him was part of being, and always then he was doing everything he was doing with those living near him and mostly he was doing everything they were doing in living, and sometimes he was quite sometimes not so much important to himself inside him, and always in a way he was never in being in living cut off really from rich American living. He knew at this time as I was saying Olga who was Ida the sister of the first governess the Herslands had had living with them, Ida was then a school-teacher, Alfred laughed at her, he liked her, Arragon liked her, there was not much history of this liking for her. Sometimes Alfred saw a good deal of her, once he wrote her a real love letter. She was in a way angry then and told him he was not a good man and should not come to see her. Arragon thought there would be some history of a feeling in himself for her, he found out for himself and from what Alfred told him about himself and her that there was not being really a history in either one of them knowing her. She was in a way a queer one to mostly every one knowing her that there was not a history in any one's knowing her. I will try now to describe her.

  I am having a glimmering of understanding two, one a man and one a woman and they are very different from each other and with them are very many and a considerable number of them have been silly ones almost without any meaning in being almost not being themselves inside them to my feeling, being such very silly ones as to me almost not to be existing, being like funny things in dreaming and now they are to me connected with some who I am really understanding then having flavor of something as being a complete thing to them. How can there be existing a flavor when there is nothing to have the flavor, that is foolishness in talking, there are many who are often all their living thinking they are being this thing. These are a kind of them, I will tell about them. Now I am thinking of some who are not to themselves existing in a flavor they are not to themselves existing in a way as something they are realising, they have been to me very often so disconcerting, they were silly ones to my feeling, they are not silly ones to most every one knowing them, I am se
eing a little now perhaps that they are existing.

  These then I am describing, I will keep only those just now in my feeling those having in them one kind of being not a mixture in them. I was describing the being in Alfred Hersland that made of him to me to very many knowing him a part of a being. He has in him only one kind of being but as I was telling pieces of it get separated off from other pieces of it by not being completely acting, flavors, reactions, by-products get disconnected and keeping on going in him and things get all disarranged in him so that this one is a part of a one in living, the bottom in him resisting and engulfing is not rich or thick or solid or ample or active enough in acting to make a complete being in my feeling in him, and always then that is there as being in him. These that to me in their living were silly ones not having any existing not from doing silly things but from there not being any connection between what they were seeing and doing and feeling and saying and always it all went on at once and kept on being all the being in them; these then are like this to me now, they are in a way of the flavor group which group as I was saying have it in them to be believing that flavor is existing without anything to be making a flavor without anything being a flavored thing. These then that I am now describing who were vague and silly ones often to my feeling pleasant ones often to my feeling, astonishing often to my feeling, disconcerting often to my feeling, these then live but they do not make themselves important to themselves in it. Those ones I have been understanding were to themselves important in the flavor living they were feeling in them and these then I came to understand by realising the bottom being in each one of them and sometime I will be giving a very interesting description of many kinds of these kinds of them who are to themselves living a flavor life in living, are to themselves only a flavor in their being, I have an interesting collection of these kinds of them and the being in them and passion and affection in them and the kind of flavor they are to themselves in themselves and the kind of flavor they are to every one to some one knowing them but all that very interesting collection I know in my living I will not be just now describing, very likely I will not describe them for some time yet as I am liking to think of describing them. These then these others I have commenced now describing are in a way connected with these these I have commenced now describing who are so vague and disconnected and puzzling and are saying and feeling and doing and seeing all at once and there is not any connection any one can be seeing and it is not in them as it is in some that bottom being in them is so slow in acting that other things in them are making confusion and bottom being never arrives in them to be doing anything, no these are different from these, everything in these is going at the same rate in them only the action is so vaguely in them that things in them do not keep in connection and these then are not to themselves inside them in the way of making themselves to themselves inside them to be themselves in them. These then live in a life but they do not make themselves important to themselves in it. One is at bottom a fairly dull not too stupid, fairly solemn, unthinking, believing, lethargic, not completely non-poignant resisting person, and this one is actively living doing all little things stubbornly because it is pleasant tasting and lively doing pleasant living in a vigorous interesting fairly delicately sensitive constant state of appreciation. The other one the woman is a practical, anarchistic, attacking, servant girl person not feeling any difference between being a dirty one or a clean one having ugly things or nice ones in anything near this one, having a need for seizing everything to use in a servant girl fashion and always this one is living a life of independently loving beauty in living having justness in appreciation and needing a delicate flavor in loving and not keep anything that does not want to be kept by this one. These two then to themselves are not really important inside them from either being in them, they are really actively living what I am calling the flavor living and passively living the other living. Olga who was Ida whom Alfred Hersland and Arragon knew once as I was saying is in a way like these only living in her is a very much more exciting occupation to herself and to a good many a little knowing her in her living. She was a stupid resisting, stagnant, dull fairly sensible one in bottom being and this being was so stagnant in her it is very hard ever to be really certain whether she was of the resisting or attacking kind of them but really she was of the resisting kind of them. This being as I am saying was stagnant being in her and as vapor there was in her a nervous almost crazy kind of asking every one to be a lover to her and this was in her and she was a substantially pretty good-hearted honest round one and so not any one can understand that there is never any history in any man ever knowing her when she is always so constantly asking every one to them to be a lover and to keep on making love to her and she was always then going on with them. This was living in her, this was being in her. To herself she was not living really in either way of her living, she was really living both of them and to herself inside her she was never certain that she was living in either one of them, in the two of them. The one she is actively living the nervous sexual asking to be object of all loving, the other one she is passively living. This then is the being and the living in Ida and so then there was not any history in the knowing of her in Mr. Arragon, in Alfred Hersland. A good many who were young laughed a good deal about her, many did not believe that any one could ever think they could want to have her and really there was never any history in any one's knowing her really, and she was a little confusing to herself sometimes then and very much a puzzle to very many others then. This is all I know now about her.

  This then is certain that not any one really was very important in the living of Alfred Hersland in his young living. As I was saying he knew a good many then, he was doing with them what he was doing then in his living, he knew a good many then and he was doing in his living with them what they were doing in their living then. I have described some of them. As I was saying the family of Madeleine Wyman were sometimes trying to be pleasant with him. The mother Mrs. Wyman could flatter him but she did not really flatter him and that was not an unpleasant thing to his feeling but he did not for that want to see her again. Sometimes he was quite a little with Madeleine Wyman's brother and her younger sister but not enough to be different really in him from knowing any other one in his living. The older Wyman daughter could be pleasant to him by taking an interest in him but that was only in him as making a little less flattering what her mother had left on him. Really there is not any use now remembering more about them for him. This was all young living in Alfred Hersland this I have been describing. There was more young living, of course there was a good deal more young living in him. There was young living in him, there was his being inside him, he lived the living of those he was then knowing and soon then he went to Bridgepoint to begin his middle living. He went there and then he came to making a living and to marrying Julia Dehning and to knowing a fair number of men and women.

  The Hissen relatives were glad to see him, it was very pleasant for them to see one of their sister's children, and to know really that the Gossols living was existing, really existing. They were pleasant cheerful quickly curious and always a little doubting and it was pleasant for them to see Alfred and to feel him and to ask him how his mother was and to hear him and to see that though he was a fairly tall one he looked a little like them and was very pleasant in liking them. The Hersland relatives too saw him and for a while he lived with his aunt and she was interested in him but it was not such a pleasant thing in her and at first he was very much with the Hissen men and women and he was a little tender with them. He liked being in Bridgepoint and he began studying and he played the violin a good deal then and he was with his relatives a good deal then and he began to know then some who knew them and others then and he was very nice then and he had a pleasant feeling of living in him then.

  It was very pleasant being in this Bridgepoint living, it was very pleasant to him to be seeing, as it is to Gossols' children, many relatives who knew him and had seen him when he was a baby and were
thinking then in seeing him of his father and his mother and he was in them the only one, and it was very pleasant for him as it is for Gossols' children to hear the thunder cracking and the lightning shooting and the leaves piling up and then snow coming looking white and then dirty when he was looking up to see it falling and then it was pleasant for him to see skating and then to see a green spring beginning, it was a pleasant thing like it is to some to hear a cuckoo sounding and to be slowly convinced by some one that it is not a clock but a live bird calling. It is a pleasant thing to come somewhere and be having such a thing happen a very pleasant thing. Alfred had a pleasant feeling and with the Hissen men and women quite a pleasant tender feeling in him in his living and to them all then he was a pleasant one quite a very pleasant one and to himself inside him then he was pleasantly being with every one. He had in him then the feeling Hissen people naturally have in them and he was to them too then a tall one and coming from Gossols and being of them and it was pleasant and they were curious and they stayed around him and were touching him then to really feel him and he was of them and he was pleasant inside him and he was a little tall for them and he and they liked him and he was living with a Hersland aunt then and this was the beginning of Bridgepoint living in him.

  This was pleasant feeling in living that Alfred had then. This can come to those living in Gossols and knowing some and being happy enough in living and enjoying doing things and then such a one coming to many with a pleasant feeling of every one knowing every one and every one knowing that one and every one a little curious and remembering and touching that one to be interested in remembering and at the same time feeling that that one is a tall one, this is very pleasant to some who have been all their living living in Gossols, not at all pleasant to some who have not been living in Gossols, not at all pleasant to some who have been living all their living in Gossols, it was very pleasant feeling in Alfred as I have been saying.