Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein

by Gertrude Stein

  I will describe now very little a very different kind of one from that one I have been just describing. There will not be then very many more of them of the considerable number left then. There will perhaps then still be left about six of them, six kinds of them and perhaps there will be added a few more to make another generalisation but really there have been already done a considerable part of the considerable number of the resisting kind of them that I am now describing.

  This one then is quite a different kind of a one from the last one I was describing. This one as a whole one is like a cannon-ball living on a bag of cotton, the cannon-ball lying on a cotton bag as a complete thing was the whole of this one. This is in a way a description of this one, there will be now a very little more description of this one.

  Children are always thinking are very often thinking that their mothers are very lovely looking and that is very often because mostly the child is always close up to the mother close to her when the child is looking and mostly being close like that as a habitual thing is to find that one a lovely thing a lovely looking one.

  This one that I was saying was a whole one which was like a cannon-ball resting on a bag of cotton was the cotton part finding the cannon-ball lovely looking being always so close to that thing and the cannon-ball was finding the cotton lovely looking that being so closely always to that thing. To explain then. This one then was one having solid enough dull not very lively, not lively at all fairly dry resisting bottom, a bottom that might have been engulfing if it had been a lively dark wet thing, but this was not true of it then at all that it was engulfing, it was entirely not engulfing. As I was saying many having engulfing being and not having resisting being enough in them are very aspiring and this one then had aspiration like what might have been engulfing in the bottom being which was not at all engulfing. Some of this kind of them have it as a bottom being something that is more nearly engulfing and these then have more active aspiration as ambition, these have then more nearly some power of very nearly engulfing something but this one was as little engulfing as such a kind of them can be in living, just as amiable and ideal in aspiration and aspiration in this one as I was saying was like the cannon-ball resting on the bag of cotton, it was completely beautiful always to all that cotton and this one was always living near light and beauty near to the aspiration, the cannon-ball and this one was then as I was saying amiable in intention and clear and large worded and hesitating in expression. This one is an interesting enough one. I am knowing quite well three of these of them, one is more nearly engulfing, one has of him the very largest size in bags of cotton, one and this is the one I am realising in now describing was a little skimped in the cotton foundation. This is not a funny description, I was not certain I should say anything of the cannon-ball and the cotton, I was almost certain I would not say anything in this description about the cannon-ball and the cotton, it was not in me a natural way of conceiving any one, some one conceived this one as a cannon-ball resting on a bag of cotton, I used that in my description, this is not to me a natural way of talking, I have been using it here as I am saying. Now I will begin describing another one and that will be leaving only a few more to be describing of the considerable number of them that I have been describing of the resisting kind of them. This one that I am now beginning describing is of the resisting and sensitive and suspicious kind of them and now I will be telling a few stories about such of them.

  It is very hard with some to be realising what kind they are this kind of them when they are quite old ones. It is a very difficult thing to be realising of some kinds of them one has been knowing before the beginning of their middle living what they are as old ones, these in living. When one is oneself a fairly old one, one will be knowing a little more perhaps of this thing, one is knowing a little of something of this thing from old relations one is knowing and one knowing all the family of these then is perhaps a little knowing what these are as younger ones in living. These that I am now describing are a kind of them that when they are old ones no one is paying much attention to them. They have then as old ones the same being in them I am now describing, they are mostly not any too successfully living all their living, they have when they are old ones the same being in them, mostly then not very many then are paying much attention to them then, these when they are old ones in living, these that I am now describing.

  These then that I am now describing are a kind of them that have sensitiveness that is complete suspicion in them, these are of the kind of them that are themselves completely important to themselves inside them, they have resistance in them much less than sensitiveness as suspicion in them. Suspicion in these of them comes out of the sensitiveness of them before the sensitiveness in them gives to them inside them really an emotion and so in these in living suspicion is as it were the whole of them, the complete emotion always in them. This sensitiveness in them that is in them a suspicion before it is an emotion in them from anything is always every moment in such of them. That these have it in them that sensitiveness makes for them suspicion before they have from anything a complete emotion is the reason that these mostly are not very successful in living, they are a little successful many of them and when they are older ones or old ones, no one, not any one is paying much attention to them. These then in a way are not really earthy, not really resisting, not at all engulfing, these then in a way are not certain that dead is dead, that things really are existing, these can have superstition and religion and prudence and fear and almost a crazy kind of thinking in them. This is now some stories about some of them.

  I feel it and I brood over it and it comes then very simply from me, do you see how simply it comes out of me, you see, I feel it and I think about it and then I know it and I know then it is a simple thing, why are you always saying then it is a complicated one when really it is a very simple one this thing, do you see now it is a very simple thing this thing, do you see that this is a simple thing like everything why then should you make of it a complicated thing when it is a simple thing, do you see now that it is a simple thing this thing, why do you make everything a complicated thing, do you see, this is a simple thing, everything is a simple thing, you make everything a complicated thing when everything is a simple thing, do you see, it is a simple thing, you say it is a complicated thing, do you see, everything is a simple thing that is certain, do you see, that is certain. Very many are always saying this thing, it is very common, to be certain, to be really certain that some one is really feeling thinking seeing that that one is really feeling thinking seeing what that one really is seeing feeling thinking is certainly a quite rare thing. Mostly then it is a difficult thing, a patient solemn thing to be really certain that any one is really feeling seeing thinking believing what that one in the way that one really is feeling thinking seeing believing is feeling thinking seeing believing anything. These then I am now describing who are completely for themselves suspicious ones, who have it in them to have emotion in them become suspicion before it is a real emotion of anything for anything about anything in them, these have it completely to be certain that every one is doing feeling seeing the thing that one is feeling doing seeing believing when such a one is not agreeing with them, when such a one is feeling thinking believing doing anything that such a one is doing that thing for a mean or wicked or jealous or stupid or obstinate or cursed or religious reason, it is not a real feeling believing seeing realising, that this one having suspicion in him is certain. One of such a kind of one once liked very well some one and then that one forgot to give this one five cents that this one had paid for that one and then this one hated that one, had no trust in that one for this one was certain that that one knowing that this one was too sensitive to be asking did not think it necessary to pay that one, he never could believe that any one forgot such a thing. This is an extreme thing of a way of feeling that is common to all of these of them. Another one once was always certain that some one who one time told him that he would sometime later be successful in teaching
meant it that he would not be successful in painting and that this was because that one was jealous of this one although that one had just met this one. This one was certain that every one sometime would do a mean thing to him and always each one to him sometime did this thing. Once one said to him I hope you will be successful in the city where you are going to earn your living. That means that you think my way of working rotten, you know very well no one making a living there is doing good work to your thinking, it would be a better thing to say what you are thinking straight out, said this one. One of such a kind of them was always asking and always getting and always he was certain that every one was doing the thing they were doing because they wanted to make of him a poor thing and some of such of them are always having difficulty with partners and others and any one and then as I am saying when they are older ones not any one pays very much attention to them. These are some and more or less like them are very many a very great many always living who have it in them that anything to them makes an emotion that is suspicion before it is real emotion in them.

  In some connected with them, sensitiveness that in these I have been just describing turns into suspicion before it is sensation or emotion about a person, a thing done, or anything, in these turns into cleverness in them or self-protection in the sense of doing nothing and breaking all engagements and giving up all obligation. In some it turns before it is really a sensation into a sensual passion. This is all very interesting surely to any one really believing really being certain completely certain that different ones are different in kind from other kinds of them are really different in experiencing. This is in a way a very difficult thing to really truly believe in one, that some one really has a completely different kind of a way of feeling a thing from another one. Mostly every one in practical living needs only to be completely realising their own experiencing and then need only to be realising other ones experiencing enough to be using them, the ones experiencing. It is a very difficult thing to really believe it of another one what the other one is really feeling, it is such a very long learning anybody must be having to be really to be actually believing this thing. I do this thing. I am a rare one, I know this always more in living. I know always more in living that other ones are really believing what they are believing, feeling, what they are feeling, thinking, what they are thinking, always more and more in living I know I am a rare one. There are not very many having this very completely really in them.

  To go on now then describing a little more some of these I have been last mentioning. Some of these are having their sensitiveness making of them clever, or self-protecting, or sexually wanting anything, without having really emotion from the thing from the sensitiveness in them. These are of the resisting kind of them and might to some seem to be engulfing but they are not really resisting or engulfing. Sensitiveness turns into suspicion, cleverness, self-protection, sexual action before it comes as an emotion and these mostly then never have sensitiveness in them leading to emotion by reaction to a person or thing or action. These then are interesting. To be telling then now a little more of some of them.

  These then all of them have it in them that everything turns inside them to suspicion, to cleverness, to self-protection, to sexual emotion, to sensibility of a kind that is a thing that is called sentimental, before it comes to produce emotion from the thing about the thing in relation to the thing itself inside them. There is one, I knew this one quite very well once and last week again I was seeing this one and now I am quite a good deal understanding this one, this is one and in this one everything was in this one sensibility of a sentimental kind, this was in this one not very much as suspicion as I was saying it is in some, and in this one everything, nothing had any meaning excepting as arousing a feeling of sentimental sensibility that was the same thing whatever was the thing that came to this one as touching this one. This one was pretty completely to every one completely socially one and this is quite a common thing. Sometime a history of her and her two mothers and her sister will be written and I have been telling that it will be written to several of them. She was as I was saying completely such a one and as a younger one was sharp and interesting and then she was a married one and then she was large and dull. This was after she succeeded fairly at the beginning of her middle living in coming to be a married one. She had not then any reaction at all in living for she was then in her married living living with bottom being reacting and there was no bottom being in her, living, at all in her then and every one said it was such a surprising thing that she should be then so completely a submissive and indifferent and inefficient and a little a timid one then when she had been before her being a married one so altogether an emotional and dark, expressive and clever one but it was just this thing that I am saying that I am now pretty well understanding that makes it a completely a natural thing, she had not ever had anything that did not turn to sensibility before it reached her in her and when she was a tired one and married and fatter then there was not this then. She is an interesting one, really she is a very interesting one, she is quite a pretty ugly one now but not in any way now an active one as now I am completely realising. It is an interesting history the history of all of this kind of them. It is a very interesting thing the history of this one. The complete family living of this one is a thing I could make a remarkably interesting thing to any one, that is certain. I have been telling that to this one. This one did not like very much to hear me say that thing, it is a certain thing that it is an interesting thing to me and I could tell it so to every one, I have been telling it to this one that I can make it a completely interesting thing. This one was not liking it very well then. Sometime I will be feeling completely the telling of it and then I will be telling it, I have told this one that I will tell it then. This one will not know then it is this one. That is the very nice thing in this writing. Sometime I will tell everything, everything. Mostly I do tell anything.

  One of this kind of them I have been describing has it that everything is in her as cleverness, or self-protection from any stimulation, never an emotion about a thing. This one would, if she could, have real emotion but it never is even a little bit in her of herself, inside her. Sometimes it is, a moment, a real feeling in her, something from something, when it is made to be in her by some one by force holding her from having it turn into cleverness, suspicion, sentimental believing, self-protection and so giving it a chance to sink into her so that she has a reaction to it really in her. This has a few times happened to her. This one is always feeling that some one should do this for her. Holding her from being her way in her so that emotion can be in her has been done for her. She never can do this for herself, ever. She is in her feeling certain that every one in this way should be doing for her. She is all her living needing that some one do this thing. She has it in her as a feeling that the world owes it to her to do this for her. She has not ever any really grateful feeling, she has only the emotion that some one wins in her for her. It is an interesting game to play in her and very many do it for her. Then they lose the power and she has to have another. She does not know that she is certain that the world owes this to her.