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

by Gertrude Stein

  As I was saying some are not ever really certain they are really loving and they are looking at one they are loving and they are thinking they could easily be forgetting that one any one they are loving, that not any one is really loved by them, that they are really not having loving feeling that is real ever in them and such then are wondering, and adoring one really having certain loving feeling. It is a very wonderful thing to such a one, one not being certain that some one can have complete energy complete certainty in loving, that some one can have emotion to have poignancy like a sensation. Such a one, one never really believing that the feeling in them is really loving feeling can perhaps come to believe it of themselves by experiencing that always they are spontaneously acting as if they were completely loving, and repeating in them of such action sometimes does convince such a one. They know they are loving because they are doing what some one who is loving would naturally be doing and this gradually brings conviction to them. Some turn it then into a sentimental feeling so as not to lose it out of them, a few keep it as really needing to be constantly repeating to keep them in their conviction. This then has been a description of some loving.

  As I was saying a great many have prejudices about people being loving. Some say alright all but one way of loving, another says alright all but another way of loving, some say not very many kinds of loving are right loving, some say all ways of loving are really ways of having loving feeling. I like loving. I like mostly all the ways any one can have of having loving feeling in them. Slowly it has come to be in me that any way of being a loving one is interesting and not unpleasant to me. That came very slowly to be in me. I like loving then as I am saying. I will tell now then a little more about loving in women and in men.

  Sometimes it is very puzzling that so many are certain that they are really loving some one. Sometimes I am wondering about how they can be so very certain. And then they have so many ways of thinking out the loving in them. And then they have ways of beginning loving and ways of ending loving very many men and very many women and ways of marrying and not marrying that certainly are puzzling and believing that they can and cannot bear to be loving and not living, they can and cannot be learning loving, and ways of being brave and being cowardly with loving and with those that they are loving that are very complicating. Sometimes some one who is always ready to be fighting and ready to kill and be killed by any one when he thinks it right for him to be an angry one sometimes then such a one being really wanting to be completely dominating in loving, being an attacking one gets frightened and has a feeling of loathing when one who is not any longer loving him though he is still loving that one threatens to really injure him. How should that one knowing that the other one is not any longer loving be so afraid when the other one threatens to really injure him. Is it that until then he could never, he being an attacking one, could never really realise that the other one was not loving him. Why should a courageous one be afraid when one who has once loved him threatens to hurt him when he would not be afraid earlier or later of that one. Is it vanity or the bitter feeling of being really an abandoned one lonely and suffering because some one is really positively not loving that one. I think it is in mostly every one, in certainly a good many women and men a kind of the last one left on earth all alone feeling when they are realising even when they are not any longer loving that one that some one really truly completely actually does not any longer love them. But all this is just something that is happening. Now I am telling a little more about loving.

  Alfred Hersland and Julia Dehning came to have some loving feeling and then they came to marrying. I am beginning again a history of them.

  I was seeing one to-day who reminded me very much of another one I have seen doing very much loving and both of these certainly are in a way in living that is a natural way to feel about the being, the acting and the living in them. These were in a way quite different ones these two in their complete living I am certain but they both being of the resisting kind in men and women were and are and will be so completely on fire always every minute in existing that they are not really ever resisting anything and being of the resisting not of the attacking kind of men and women the fire of it is burning any one besides being just burning is burning that one by accident of conflagration, are burning themselves by accident of being themselves in a fire that is burning. I know just now two of such of them, one of such of them I know quite well in all loving, the other one I am just seeing sitting, standing, running, looking, a little in talking, breathing and I will not be seeing any more in living, I have not been seeing any more in living. The loving in such of them is naturally from the being of them what any one understanding now the being in such can be realising. All the ones in between these and engulfing ones, between these and completely resisting ones are existing. I have seen quite a number of them. I am seeing these days very many kinds of men and women. Sometimes now I am tired out and irritated and not at all amiable about them because they are not some of them like any other one I have been knowing. Sometimes then now I have a very irritable feeling in looking and sometimes some one these days and I am looking steadily at them are very completely illuminating a kind in men and women. I am these days seeing men and women. I am these days looking and looking and looking at them and then I am all worn out and irritated by being wearied with seeing and not seeing being in them. I see a very considerable number just now of men and women. I am wearied and not weary with my learning always more and more and then not being really ever certain. I am a happy one, that is quite reasonably certain. I am quite a very happy person. I am quite completely a very happy person seeing very many men and women.

  I am listening just now to many women loving one, a resisting one who is not burning. This one certainly is not burning, not burning himself or any one by conflagration. This is one of the resisting kind of them I have been describing not having any weakness in him and all the romantic strength of intelligent and active genius to very many knowing him. This gives in him some appearance of burning to some. One having as I was saying being like wood cut and excellent and hard and sometimes made into shapes very fanciful and delicate and perhaps symbolic but always being solid wood cut and not sensitive to being a weak thing by being a thing having sap flowing. This one then as I am saying is always being one having many loving him, insisting upon loving him, clinging adoring, following, needing him. He is having very many kinds of women always loving him. He is a very nice man really in his loving. He is sentimental a little and solid and firm and gentle and complete in loving and not any longer loving.

  Sometime I will describe very many who are loving in their living. I have now described some, and I am feeling very many loving everywhere in living. I am feeling a very great many men and women, I am feeling a very great many men and women doing loving. More and more I will be satisfied with every kind there is in men and women of being, doing loving. Now I am really beginning again about being in Alfred Hersland and in Julia Dehning.

  Alfred Hersland as almost any one can tell now by remembering was of the resisting engulfing kind in men and women, not a very complete one in being, fairly aspiring in being and in living, not really failing not really succeeding in the whole of the living in him, not completely certain that to be dead was to be really a dead one, not quite completely entirely utterly certain that to be dead was not to be really a dead one. Julia Dehning I am just beginning describing. Julia Dehning was of the attacking kind in men and women. Julia Dehning was of the kind of attacking kind who mostly are spending their living resisting being at bottom changing in their way of doing any attacking. They are attacking with some excitement everything to mostly every one seeing them, really they are resisting all their living any changing in their feeling of attacking. In a way then at bottom they are mostly all their living not having any stimulation. Mostly to every one they are excitedly every minute being stimulated by something. I am going to tell a good deal now about attacking being. I am beginning preparing myself now to be
courageous to do this thing. I am feeling a little weak now in courageous feeling as is quite common in my living. I am remembering and remembering attacking being. I am a little realising this thing. I am beginning again now remembering realising attacking being in men and women, in Julia Dehning.

  Hopefulness is to me very interesting. Any one expecting anything to be coming out of them, being fairly certain in being a hopeful one is to me fairly interesting. There have been in me feeling very nearly to being a completely miserable one in having another one fairly certain of having something coming from them, of being fairly completely a hopeful one. There are very hopeful ones having resisting being or engulfing resisting being in them, there are hopeful ones having attacking being. I will now soon be describing hopeful being in men and women having attacking being in them. I have been pretty miserable sometimes seeing them, hearing them, feeling them. I have been quite very miserable hearing, feeling and seeing some, some are having complete hopefulness of enthusiastic or excited or passionate attacking being. I have not had a miserable feeling from seeing or hearing or feeling attacking hopeful ones who are completely fighting ones or pushing ones or winning ones in living. I have not been miserable about them, not at all, I have not been miserable for them the excited or enthusiastic or passionate ones, not at all, I have been a miserable one because I have been always a little pretty nearly certain that I would be ending failing and every one enthusiastic or passionate or sensitive or excited in attacking would then make me a jealous one, a miserable one having a sad and sombre feeling, being certain that to be dead was to be really a dead one and that I pretty nearly certainly would be always being nearer and more nearly a completely dead one. I had very much such being in me and I was a sad resisting depressed jealous one then and now I am telling this thing.

  Attacking being and resisting being have each their way of having hopeful feeling. Some have very much hopeful feeling, some have less, some have none, some have pretty nearly none, some not any at all really hopeful feeling. Each one has their own way of having in them certain feeling, hopeful feeling. I am loving to know every one having or not having hopeful feeling in them, certain feeling in them. I am wanting to know every one who ever was or is or will be living, all the being in each one of them, all the kinds there are of men and women, all the ways each one has anything ever in them everything they ever have in them in them.

  It is certainly a very queer thing to be certain sometime about some one that they have been all their living that kind of one in their being. It is certainly a most queer feeling of dreaming that one has in one when one is certain about some one of the being in them and then is remembering the being in that one that was in that one when one was not really knowing that one very well but still quite well. It is a very queer feeling of dreaming that one has then. It comes then sharply to one then to be deciding whether one is really then ever certain about anything, any one. And yet I certainly am certain that sometime I am really completely knowing some one and very often I have in me a queer feeling like dreaming. It is then a curious thing in feeling to be coming to learn to know very completely any one. I have come to know very completely now, pretty nearly completely now Julia Dehning and I am now beginning to tell all the being in Julia Dehning as I have been learning to be realising the being in Julia Dehning. Julia Dehning was of the attacking kind in men and women. I have mentioned this thing. Julia Dehning was of one kind of the attacking kind in men and women. I have told a little about this kind of the attacking kind in men and women. I will slowly quite slowly I am hoping be telling the complete history of Julia Dehning, I will slowly certainly fairly slowly be describing all the being of Julia Dehning, I will be always telling a very good deal about attacking being in men and women. I will be telling a good deal about hoping and loving and liking to be a cold or a hot one in the attacking kind in men and women. I will be always somehow managing to be remembering learning being in Julia Dehning. I am writing the history of Alfred Hersland and Julia Dehning and of every one pretty nearly every one they came to know in their living, of pretty nearly every one who came to know them or to know about them. I am remembering always that each one is repeating always all their being, I am remembering that very often I am very much not knowing what they are saying to other ones, what they are feeling, how they are not feeling and doing what I am thinking and hearing they are saying and doing, I am remembering that very often they are having being in them and I am supplying in them in my feeling what they certainly have not been having in them. In short I am remembering and I am a little melancholy with it in me now I am quite certain. I would so be content with knowing everything. I am giving now a history of Alfred Hersland and Julia Dehning. It is puzzling that each one has had being in them and have been repeating the whole being of them and I have not been hearing seeing feeling all the being in them. Yes it is certainly true of them of very many men and very many women I have not been hearing more than a part of the repeating coming out of them. They are each one always repeating all the being in them. I am certain. I am hearing always very much repeating coming out of each one I am ever knowing. I am not hearing anywhere nearly all the repeating coming out of them each one I am ever knowing. I am always hearing, seeing, feeling repeating coming out of each one I am ever knowing. I am knowing kinds in men and women. I am not hearing a wonderful amount of repeating always coming, I am now quite certain. I could be so happy knowing everything. I could be enjoying so much having curious feeling about every one if always more and more I could certainly be hearing, feeling seeing all every bit of repeating coming in any way out of every one. I am enjoying having curious feeling about every one, I like every bit of repeating I am hearing, I get an awful sinking feeling when I find out by an accidental hearing, feeling, seeing repeating from some one what I have not been hearing, feeling, seeing as repeating in this one and then I am saying if it had not been for this little accidental thing I would not have known this repeating in this one and it is so easy not to have such an accidental happening. Alas, I say then, alas, I will perhaps not really ever be knowing all the repeating coming out of each one. I know some of the repeating coming out of Alfred Hersland and Julia Dehning and some others whom they knew and some others who knew them and I will now be describing what I am desolately feeling is all being in them. I am desolate because I am not certainly hearing all repeating, I am almost sulking. I am beginning now to go on with my history of the Dehning family and of Julia Dehning and of her marrying and of the Hersland family and of Alfred Hersland and of every one they any of them came to know in their living. To begin again then from pretty nearly the beginning. I am remembering everything I have been telling. I am always loving all repeating. I am realising kinds in men and women. I am realising Alfred Hersland and Julia Dehning. That is I am certainly somewhere near to a fairly complete realisation of them and of some whom they knew each one and who came to know them either of them. I am a little tired now with all this beginning again. I am hoping that I am going on again.

  The Hersland family living was different from the Dehning family living. The Dehning family living was that of right very rich American being. It was the living of the Dehning family being and the living of the Dehning family living, very rich American living. The Dehning family was different from the Hersland family. There was Mr. Henry Dehning and Mrs. Dehning and Julia Dehning and George Dehning and Hortense Dehning. They were each one themselves inside them, they made together then a family living, they were living then right very rich American living. Mr. Henry Dehning had his being in him, Mrs. Dehning had her being in her, Julia Dehning had her being in her, George Dehning had his being in him, Hortense Dehning had her being in her, this is to be now the history of all the living in each one of them, of the family living they had in living, of the living they had each one with each one of the others of them and with themselves inside them, this is to be the history of every one almost every one, they ever came to know, any one of them in living, the history of every one wh
o came to know of them to know of any one of them, of any one ever connected in anyway with them, in any way with any one of them. There are a great many men and women always living. This is to be now some history of some of them.

  Mr. Henry Dehning was a foreign American, he was living then the living of a very rich American, he was a very different kind of a person from Mr. David Hersland. They never met in their living. This will have been and will be a history of both of them. Mr. David Hersland as I have said was full up with beginning and later full up with impatient feeling. Mr. Henry Dehning was not at all the same kind in living as Mr. David Hersland. Mr. Henry Dehning was married to one who was of the attacking kind in men and women, Mr. Henry Dehning was a resisting kind of them that was so diffused in smoothly and compactly resisting that be seemed to be always steadily to be attacking. He would very often not be hearing what any one was saying to him. He was a very nice man, he was quite entirely almost a good man. He was pretty nearly completely a quite successful man. He was loving to his wife and to his children, he was ready to listen and to understand any one's wanting to be doing something. He and his wife lived together like very many good men and women, his wife was not too good a woman but she was a good woman, not a bad one. She was pretty harsh in any attacking, he was not gentle but he was smoother in resisting. They were really very nice and good and pleasant and successful and happy and content in married living. They both came to be a little worried with being old ones and having to take care of their own and each other's older troubles as older people come to have them with the body wearing they have then in them. She made him do what she wanted him to do, he made her do what he wanted her to do, they made each other do what they wanted each other to do, very much less were they doing this thing with their children. They were very rich American man and woman living very well the right very rich American living.