Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein

by Gertrude Stein

  The only thing that is different from one time to another is what is seen and what is seen depends upon how everybody is doing everything.

  It is understood by this time that everything is the same except composition and time, composition and the time of the composition and the time in the composition.

  Everything is the same except composition and as the composition is different and always going to be different everything is not the same. So then I as a contemporary creating the composition in the beginning was groping toward a continuous present, a using everything a beginning again and again and then everything being alike then everything very simply everything was naturally simply different and so I as a contemporary was creating everything being alike was creating everything naturally being naturally simply different, everything being alike. This then was the period that brings me to the period of the beginning of 1914. Everything being alike everything naturally would be simply different and war came and everything being alike and everything being simply different brings everything being simply different brings it to romanticism.

  Romanticism is then when everything being alike everything is naturally simply different, and romanticism.

  Then for four years this was more and more different even though this was, was everything alike. Everything alike naturally everything was simply different and this is and was romanticism and this is and was war. Everything being alike everything naturally everything is different simply different naturally simply different.

  And so there was the natural phenomena that was war, which had been, before war came, several generations behind the contemporary composition, because it became war and so completely needed to be contemporary became completely contemporary and so created the completed recognition of the contemporary composition. Every one but one may say every one became consciously became aware of the existence of the authenticity of the modern composition. This then the contemporary recognition, because of the academic thing known as war having been forced to become contemporary made every one not only contemporary in act not only contemporary in thought but contemporary in self-consciousness made every one contemporary with the modern composition. And so the art creation of the contemporary composition which would have been outlawed normally outlawed several generations more behind even than war, war having been brought so to speak up to date art so to speak was allowed not completely to be up to date, but nearly up to date, in other words we who created the expression of the modern composition were to be recognized before we were dead some of us even quite a long time before we were dead. And so war may be said to have advanced a general recognition of the expression of the contemporary composition by almost thirty years.

  And now after that there is no more of that in other words there is peace and something comes then and it follows coming then.

  And so now one finds oneself interesting oneself in an equilibration, that of course means words as well as things and distribution as well as between themselves between the words and themselves and the things and themselves, a distribution as distribution. This makes what follows what follows and now there is every reason why there should be an arrangement made. Distribution is interesting and equilibration is interesting when a continuous present and a beginning again and again and using everything and everything alike and everything naturally simply different has been done.

  After all this, there is that, there has been that that there is a composition and that nothing changes except composition the composition and the time of and the time in the composition.

  The time of the composition is a natural thing and the time in the composition is a natural thing it is a natural thing and it is a contemporary thing.

  The time of the composition is the time of the composition. It has been at times a present thing it has been at times a past thing it has been at times a future thing it has been at times an endeavour at parts or all of these things. In my beginning it was a continuous present a beginning again and again and again and again, it was a series it was a list it was a similarity and everything different it was a distribution and an equilibration. That is all of the time some of the time of the composition.

  Now there is still something else the time-sense in the composition. This is what is always a fear a doubt and a judgement and a conviction. The quality in the creation of expression the quality in a composition that makes it go dead just after it has been made is very troublesome.

  The time in the composition is a thing that is very troublesome. If the time in the composition is very troublesome it is because there must even if there is no time at all in the composition there must be time in the composition which is in its quality of distribution and equilibration. In the beginning there was the time in the composition that naturally was in the composition but time in the composition comes now and this is what is now troubling every one the time in the composition is now a part of distribution and equilibration. In the beginning there was confusion there was a continuous present and later there was romanticism which was not a confusion but an extrication and now there is either succeeding or failing there must be distribution and equilibration there must be time that is distributed and equilibrated. This is the thing that is at present the most troubling and if there is the time that is at present the most troublesome the time-sense that is at present the most troubling is the thing that makes the present the most troubling. There is at present there is distribution, by this I mean expression and time, and in this way at present composition is time that is the reason that at present the time-sense is troubling that is the reason why at present the time-sense in the composition is the composition that is making what there is in composition.

  And afterwards.

  Now that is all.

  PORTRAIT OF

  MABEL DODGE

  At the Villa Curonia

  In Chapter V of THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS, printed in this Collection, Gertrude Stein relates how she met Mabel Dodge, how she visited her at the Villa Curonia in Florence where she wrote this portrait, and how Mabel had 300 copies printed and bound in assorted Florentine wall-papers. Returning to America in 1912, Mabel brought a package of these little pamphlets with her and gave them away to anybody she thought would be interested enough to say or write something about the author. It was in this manner that I became acquainted with the work of Gertrude Stein and a year later, again through Mabel, I met her. The PORTRAIT was reprinted in PORTRAITS AND PRAYERS, 1943, and again in Mabel Dodge Luhan’s EUROPEAN EXPERIENCES, 1935.

  The days are wonderful and the nights are wonderful and the life is pleasant.

  Bargaining is something and there is not that success. The intention is what if application has that accident results are reappearing. They did not darken. That was not an adulteration.

  So much breathing has not the same place when there is that much beginning. So much breathing has not the same place when the ending is lessening. So much breathing has the same place and there must not be so much suggestion. There can be there the habit that there is if there is no need of resting. The absence is not alternative.

  Any time is the half of all the noise and there is not that disappointment. There is no distraction. An argument is clear.

  Packing is not the same when the place which has all that is not emptied. There came there the hall and this was not the establishment. It had not all the meaning.

  Blankets are warmer in the summer and the winter is not lonely. This does not assure the forgetting of the intention when there has been and there is every way to send some. There does not happen to be a dislike for water. This is not heartening.

  As the expedition is without the participation of the question there will be nicely all that energy. They can arrange that the little color is not bestowed. They can leave it in regaining that intention. It is mostly repaid. There can be an irrigation. They can have the whole paper and they send it in some package. It is not inundated.

  A bottle that has all the time to stand open is
not so clearly shown when there is green color there. This is not the only way to change it. A little raw potato and then all that softer does happen to show that there has been enough. It changes the expression.

  It is not darker and the present time is the best time to agree. This which has been feeling is what has the appetite and the patience and the time to stay. This is not collaborating.

  All the attention is when there is not enough to do. This does not determine a question. The only reason that there is not that pressure is that there is a suggestion. There are many going. A delight is not bent. There had been that little wagon. There is that precision when there has not been an imagination. There has not been that kind abandonment. Nobody is alone.

  If the spread that is not a piece removed from the bed is likely to be whiter then certainly the sprinkling is not drying. There can be the message where the print is pasted and this does not mean that there is that esteem. There can be the likelihood of all the days not coming later and this will not deepen the collected dim version.

  It is a gnarled division that which is not any obstruction and the forgotten swelling is certainly attracting, it is attracting the whiter division, it is not sinking to be growing, it is not darkening to be disappearing, it is not aged to be annoying. There can not be sighing. This is this bliss.

  Not to be wrapped and then to forget undertaking, the credit and then the resting of that interval, the pressing of the sounding when there is no trinket is not altering, there can be pleasing classing clothing.

  A sap that is that adaptation is the drinking that is not increasing. There can be that lack of quivering. That does not originate every invitation. There is not wedding introduction. There is not all that filling. There is the climate that is not existing there is that plainer. There is the likeliness lying in liking likely likeliness. There is that dispensation. There is the paling that is not reddening, there is the reddening that is not reddening, there is that protection, there is that destruction, there is not the present lessening there is the argument of increasing. There is that that is not that which is that resting. There is not that occupation. There is that particular half of directing that there is that particular whole direction that is not all the measure of any combination. Gliding is not heavily moving. Looking is not vanishing. Laughing is not evaporating. There can be the climax. There can be the same dress. There can be an old dress. There can be the way there is that way there is that which is not that charging what is a regular way of paying. There has been William. All the time is likely. There is the condition. There has been admitting. There is not the print. There is that smiling. There is the season. There is that where there is not that which is where there is what there is which is beguiling. There is a paste.

  Abandon a garden and the house is bigger. This is not smiling. This is comfortable. There is the comforting of predilection. An open object is establishing the loss that there was when the vase was not inside the place. It was not wandering.

  A plank that was dry was not disturbing the smell of burning and altogether there was the best kind of sitting there could never be all the edging that the largest chair was having. It was not pushed. It moved then. There was not that lifting. There was that which was not any contradiction and there was not the bland fight that did not have that regulation. The contents were not darkening. There was not that hesitation. It was occupied. That was not occupying any exception. Any one had come. There was that distribution.

  There was not that velvet spread when there was a pleasant head. The color was paler. The moving regulating is not a distinction. The place is there.

  Likely there is not that departure when the whole place that has that texture is so much in the way. It is not there to stay. It does not change that way. A pressure is not later. There is the same. There is not the shame. There is that pleasure.

  In burying that game there is not a change of name. There is not perplexing and co-ordination. The toy that is not round has to be found and looking is not straining such relation. There can be that company. It is not wider when the length is not longer and that does make that way of staying away. Every one is exchanging returning. There is not a prediction. The whole day is that way. Any one is resting to say that the time which is not reverberating is acting in partaking.

  A walk that is not stepped where the floor is covered is not in the place where the room is entered. The whole one is the same. There is not any stone. There is the wide door that is narrow on the floor. There is all that place.

  There is that desire and there is no pleasure and the place is filling the only space that is placed where all the piling is not adjoining. There is not that distraction.

  Praying has intention and relieving that situation is not solemn. There comes that way.

  The time that is the smell of the plain season is not showing the water is running. There is not all that breath. There is the use of the stone and there is the place of the stuff and there is the practice of expending questioning. There is not that differentiation. There is that which is in time. There is the room that is the largest place when there is all that is where there is space. There is not that perturbation. The legs that show are not the certain ones that have been used. All legs are used. There is no action meant.

  The particular space is not beguiling. There is that participation. It is not passing any way. It has that to show. It is why there is no exhalation.

  There is all there is when there has all there has where there is what there is. That is what is done when there is done what is done and the union is won and the division is the explicit visit. There is not all of any visit.

  HAVE THEY

  ATTACKED MARY.

  HE GIGGLED.

  (A Political Caricature)

  This poem originally appeared in VANITY FAIR, June 1917. Owing to “lack of space” thirty-five lines were omitted. When the poem was printed as a pamphlet later in 1917, illustrated with “a political caricature of Henry McBride by Jules Pascin,” these lines were restored. A note in the pamphlet advises the reader that this work has been referred to as a portrait of Henry McBride, the noted art critic. “It is in fact,” the note continues, “a genre picture and Mr. McBride is but one of the personages. The ‘political’ quality of Miss Stein’s caricature will not be misapprehended by students of her work.”

  Can you be more confusing by laughing. Do say yes.

  We are extra. We have the reasonableness of a woman and we say we do not like a room. We wish we were married.

  Why do you believe in me.

  Including all that is sold, you mean three pictures, including all that is sold why cannot you give me that.

  I do give it to you.

  Thank you, I was only joking.

  But I do mean it.

  Thank you very much.

  PAGE II

  Can you swim in a lake.

  We can.

  Then do so.

  PAGE III

  Have you an automobile.

  PAGE IV

  The queen has.

  We asked for one.

  They cannot send it now.

  Cannot they.

  We will see.

  PAGE XXXIX

  In memory of the Englishwoman.

  We will buy it together.

  Not that Englishwoman.

  No not that time or that one.

  PAGE VI

  We wish to go there.

  Can they accept us.

  We marry.

  They ask.

  PAGE VII

  In the middle of the exercise.

  We exercise.

  We are successful.

  PAGE VIII

  Can you speak.

  The dog.

  Can you bear to tear the skirt.

  PAGE IX

  Lighting.

  We can see to the lighting.

  PAGE X

  Can a Jew be wild.

  PAGE XI

  A great many settlers have mercy. Of course t
hey do to me.

  You are proud. I am proud of my courage.

  PAGE XII

  Can you find me in a home.

  We can all find you in a hole. I hope not.

  Then keep warm. I cannot have that announcement. Very well then elect him. We can be suggestive.

  PAGE XIII

  Can you finish for me.

  PAGE XIV

  In the midst of refusing I have been asked to go on. We hope so.

  PAGE XV

  Can you wish me to think.

  PAGE XVI

  In the next name you mean the wife in the next name there is a mention of a ring. In the next name they have means.

  What can you do to relate it.

  Many ready papers many papers are taken there.

  You mean they made the mistake.

  They made the mistake of choosing that silver.

  Little silver little silver.

  PAGE XVII

  I’m coming to grieve.

  PAGE XVIII

  I cannot find a real dressmaker.

  Neither can I.

  PAGE XIX

  In the little while in which I say stop it you are not spoiled.

  PAGE XX

  Can you think of lingering. You mean as to weight. Why yes I feel that. Can you think of dwindling.

  Can you.

  PAGE XXI

  In the midst of the fortnight what was the wish.

  We did not say others. Nor did he.

  Indeed he was not observed. You mean in the time.

  In the day time and at night.

  And in the evening.

  PAGE XXII

  Believe me in everything.

  PAGE XXIII

  I can go.

  Don’t remind the English.

  PAGE XXIV

  You mean of everything.