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

by Gertrude Stein

  Any one who knew him would know that he had religion in him, that he always had had religion in him. Always one knew it in the two children that they had they always would have religion in them, religion with all three of them was a part of them, it was to all of them a part of their being, it was not a belief in them, it was of them like eating and sleeping and washing, for all these things and religion were part of their being, such was the nature of all three of them. Not that all three of them had the same nature in them, the three of them each one was very different from the other two of them, each one had their own nature in them, but all three had this in common that religion that eating sleeping and washing were natural to them, other things too were natural in them and all these things will come out more and more in the history of them.

  There are many men and many women and some of their children who have at some time religion in them. There are some of all these, of the many men and many women and some children who have religion in them, there are many of these that have it in them as a natural part of them, who have religion always inside them, who need religion as they do eating and sleeping and loving and there are very many who have religion in them so from the beginning of them, in some of them this religion in them makes them important inside to them, with some of them this religion in them makes them important to every one who knows them, there are some who have religion in them as a natural thing in them and have always had such a thing in them and it does not give any importance to them.

  There are some then who always have religion in them to whom it is as natural as breathing, there are some who have it in them who need it in them to complete them, there are some who have it like eating and sleeping, some who have it like loving, some who have it like washing, there are some who have it from a need in them to have it fill them when they have lost something that was once a piece in them; some get from religion an important feeling, some have it and are important to every one who knows them, some never have in it any kind of an important feeling.

  Mr. Richardson and his two children had always had religion in them, religion would always be in them like eating and sleeping and washing, not like breathing and loving. Religion was always in them, they had it always and it made all three of them important to every one that knew them.

  To the father Mr. Richardson religion was like eating and sleeping and washing, all these and religion made him a continuous being, they were not outside him, they all were in him and they made him always continue in his existing. Religion had been in him always as a part of him, it was in him like sleeping, it was in him like eating, it was of him like washing, it had always been in him as a part of him, it had always made him important to every one who knew him, it did not make him important to himself inside him any more than eating and sleeping and washing made him important to himself inside him, it was a part of his continuous existing; it did always make him important to every one who knew him.

  To some who knew him, to some who had not any kind of religion in them, to some this religion in him was to them like lying but these did not understand him, there was in religion in him no more of lying, with him, than there was in washing any more than there was in eating or sleeping, this was very hard for some of them who knew him, some of them who never had any religion in them, to understand about him but always it was true of him, religion in him was like eating and sleeping and washing, it did not make him to himself important inside him, it made him important to everyone who knew him, it was there and they knew it in him, it was in him and whatever he should be ever found out in doing that would never make it different in him that religion was real inside him, that it was in him like his eating and sleeping and washing, that it never was, in him, lying any more than eating and sleeping and washing were lying. It was a part of him as they were a part of him, they were needed every day to remake him, to keep him going on in existing, so it was with religion and this in him made him important to every one who knew him.

  The religion inside him, as I was saying, kept him existing, it was not that it filled a need in him, it was not that he used it in his living, it kept him continuous and existing as did his eating and sleeping. Religion was to him like eating and sleeping, religion was to him also like washing and it was this in him, the religion like washing that made him important to every one who knew him. Religion was to him as eating and sleeping was in him, religion was in him as washing was to him and this religion in him made him important to every one who knew him.

  Washing is very common, almost every one does some washing, with some it is only for cleansing, with some it is a refreshing, with some a ceremonial thing that makes them important to every one who knows them. In those who have religion in them as washing is to some of them who make it a distinction in them, in some who have religion in them as washing is to some who do it as a necessary part of their daily living, such have from it a distinction; washing is not a natural thing to happen like eating or sleeping, washing is not like eating or sleeping, it has in it a distinction and to them who do it every day as a natural thing to them, they have it in them to be important to every one who knows them, when religion is in any one as this washing is in some who have it in them, then such a one is important to every one who knows him.

  Eating and sleeping are not like loving and breathing. Washing is not like eating and sleeping. Believing is like breathing and loving. Religion can be believing, it can be like breathing, it can be like loving, it can be like eating or sleeping, it can be like washing. It can be something to fill up a place when some one has lost out of them a piece that it was natural for them to have in them.

  To be continuous in existing by an every day eating and sleeping is like what some have in religion, then it is not from a need in them, it is from the natural way they have in them to be continuous in their existing. Feeding and religion with such of them is every day natural to them. Washing is different from eating and sleeping. It is natural to some and it makes such ones important to every one that knows them. Some have religion in them as some have washing and they are always important to every one who knows them. To have washing as natural to them is some distinction to those who have it as natural in them, to have religion in them to be in them as washing is to some, those to whom it is natural from the beginning to have religion in them in such a way as some have washing is to make of them who have religion in any such a way natural to them important to every one who knows them.

  Mr. Richardson had always had, from his beginning, religion in him. It was always natural in him as was his eating and sleeping and washing. He kept on this way in his existing, it was natural to him to keep on existing, it was natural to him to have in him religion and eating and sleeping and washing, he had had them all always from his beginning. It did not make him important to himself inside him, it made him important to everyone who knew him. There were many things in him and these will come out in the history of him. Always religion was in him, always he was important to every one who knew him. There were some who did not understand it in him, who thought it of him that religion was in him as a kind of lying but these did not understand religion in him, it was in him and had been in him from his beginning, it was in him as eating was in him, as sleeping was in him, as washing was to him. It did not make him important to himself inside him, it did make him important to every one that knew him.

  This father Mr. Richardson and his two children Eddy and Lilly were different from any of the others who lived then in the small houses near the ten acre place where the Hersland family were living in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living. Slowly the Hersland children came to know the three of them, they began to know then the character of the two children Eddy and Lilly Richardson, they never came to have in them, the Hersland family then, much more knowledge of the father of the two children Mr. Richardson. The character of Eddy and Lilly Richardson will come out then in the history of the Hersland children as they come to know it in them.

  There were t
hen many families living in the small houses near the ten acre place where the Hersland family were living then in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living. There were many families of, for them, poor queer people living near them and each one of the families of them had in them their own way of living, their own way of going on existing, of having uncertain things in them, of earning their daily living. More and more the Hersland family came to know them, more and more the Hersland children came to be of them.

  There were many families of them. Some of them had many children. Almost all of them had things in them to interest the Hersland children. Some of them were good companions to them in their out door living, some in the school life they lead together with them, some from the books and other things that they loaned to them, all these children in the little houses near them were in some way interesting to some one of the three of them either from what they were in themselves then or from their lives or what they had in their houses to lend to them, they were, all of these children of the, for them, poor queer people around them, they were all in some way interesting to some one of the three of them. They were, all of them, more and more interesting to the three Hersland children as these came always more and more to know them, as they came to be more and more a part of them. The Hersland children came to know them, they came to know others who knew these who lived near them, some who lived in other parts of Gossols and some of these others that the Hersland children came to know through the families near them, some of these others came later to be very important to the three of them, some came to be important to the father of the Hersland children, some also to the mother of them, all this will come out in the later history of them. This was the beginning of living for the Hersland children, and more and more then they came to know the, for them, poor queer people who lived in the little houses near them in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living.

  So then it was then slowly coming to be true of them that the three children were more entirely of them, the poorer people who lived around them, than they were of their mother then, than their mother was of them then, though they were all there was of their mother's daily living then.

  This was true of them then in the years when they were only beginning to know themselves inside them. Later then in their living with the same people around them, Alfred the elder son of the two boys then was beginning to have inside him a feeling in him as there always had been in the mother of them, he was beginning then not to be any longer of them the poorer people who lived around them, more and more then such a feeling went out of him and he was beginning to have it fill up in him then inside him to replace the feeling that was not then any longer in him, out of the feeling that gave his mother her important being. In the daughter there was more in her then when she was older of the kind of feeling that their father had in him. In the younger son there always remained in him all through his later living the feeling that made him be one to him with the people that had been around him. All this will come out in the detailed history of each one of the three of them. Now in the beginning they were all three of them of the people who lived in the small houses around them.

  To begin again then when it was slowly coming to be true of them that the three children were more entirely of them, the poorer people who lived around them, than they were of their mother then, than their mother was of them then, though they were all there was of their mother's daily living then.

  They were all there was of their mother's daily living then but they were nothing to her then of the important being that was beginning to be strong inside her then. They were to her in her then as they had been when she was bearing them, they were part of her as her arms or heart were part of her then, she felt them, she took care of them then as she took care of her body out of which she had once made them and so she always felt them. Later she was lost among them, she would be scared then and they were no longer of her then, they were not any longer in her then to her, she was for them then a gentle scared little-thing. She was lost among them then, sometimes they would be good to her then, oftener she would not be existing for them then, mostly she was scared then and the important feeling was dead in her then, she had lost them, they were not of her any more then and she lost her body with them. Sometimes then they would be good to her, mostly they forgot about her, slowly she died away among them and then there was no more of living for her, she died away from all of them. She had never been really important to any of them, she was not important to her husband then for she was not enough to fill him now that he was shrinking away from the outside of him, she was not enough any more now to fill him, she was not in any way then important to her children for now they did not need to have in them the feeling that she had for them when they were for her as if she was still carrying them inside her still using herself up to make them from out of her, they were not in any way then any longer necessary to her, they had never been in her a part of her in the important being that was all that there was real to her of an important feeling inside in her. She was not then any more important to any of them when they were older, she was not important to her husband then for she was not enough then any more to fill him, not to her children, she never had been important to them after they had come to their individual feeling, they had never been in her a part of the important feeling to herself inside her, now she had a scared feeling in her, now she was lost among them and mostly they forgot about her, now she died away among them and they never thought about her, sometimes they would be good to her, mostly for them she had no existence in her and then she died away and the gentle scared little woman was all that they ever after remembered of her. Those who always after remembered about her were the servants, the governesses, the dependents who had been around her, they always were a real life to her, they were the important feeling in her, they always remembered about her, they had felt the real important being to herself inside her. This then is the history of how they came together with her to be in her and to give to her the important feeling inside her that was all there ever was of real being in her.

  Her children were then a part of her, they were never any part of the important feeling of herself inside her that was beginning then to stir in her. It was slowly coming to be true of them then, the three Hersland children then, that they were more entirely of them, the poorer people who lived around them, than they were of their mother then, than their mother was of them then, though they were all that there was of their mother's daily living then.

  Their mother then was just beginning to have in her the important feeling that had first become a little stirred up to be made inside her by her knowing the Shilling mother and the daughter Sophie Shilling and the other daughter Pauline Shilling. This important feeling that had then been a little begun inside her was now to be more stirred up in her, was to come to be almost a real thing in her by her living in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living near her and in a kind of living that was not a natural way of being for her. Here she had around her, for her, poor queer kind of people in the little houses near her, in the house with her she had servants and governesses and seamstresses who made a life for her, her children who were then a part of her to her, and her husband and the certain little power with him she felt in herself to have in her, though mostly she had not in her for her husband or her children a sense of being important to herself inside her. This important feeling of herself inside her that had begun a little to exist in her from the Shilling family to her, was now stirred up to be more in her with the governesses and seamstresses and servants who lived in the house with her, and with the, for her, poor queer kind of people who lived in the small houses near her.

  There are many kinds of men. Some kinds of them have it in them to feel themselves as big as all the world around them. Some have such a sense in them only when a new thing begins in them, soon they lose it out of them.

  There are many ways of being a man, there are many millions of each kind of th
em, more and more in ones living they are there repeating themselves around one, every one of them in his own way being the kind of man he has in him, and there are always many millions made just like each one of them.

  There are many ways of being a man and sometime one gets to know almost all of them, some sometime get to know all of them, there are many millions made of each kind of them, each one of them is different from all the other millions made just like him, this makes of him an individual, this in some of them makes in him an individual feeling to have inside in him, in some of some kinds of them there is almost nothing of such an individual being, perhaps always in every one in some way there is something of such an individual being, in all men, in women, and in the children of them.

  There are many kinds of men, of every kind of them there are many millions of them many millions always made to be like the others of that kind of them, of some kinds of them there are more millions made like the others of such a kind of them than there are millions made alike of some other kinds of men. Perhaps this is not really true about any kind of them, perhaps there are not less millions of one kind of men than there are millions of other kinds of them, perhaps one thinks such a thing about some kinds of men only because in some kinds of men there is more in each one of such a kind, more in the many millions of such a kind of them, of an individual feeling in every one of such a kind of them. Perhaps in some kinds of men there are many more, in the many millions of their kind of them, there are many more of them that have in them a strongly existing individual being than in some other kinds of men other kinds of men of which there are not really any more millions made alike than there are of those kinds of men. Perhaps it is this strongly existing individual being in some of the kinds of men that makes it seem that there are less millions of them in the world of men than there are of other kinds of men other kinds of men who have in most of them less in them of such individual existing. Perhaps it is this in some of the kinds of men those kinds in which many of the millions of them have much in them of individual being, perhaps it is that which makes any one who knows any one of such kinds of men think him more different from the other millions of them made just like him the other millions of his kind of men, makes those who know any of such a kind of men, feel them to be more different one from the other of their kind of men than the ones of some other kind of men are different from the other millions of their kind of men to those who meet many of them. Always there are many kinds of men and always there are many millions made of each kind of them, there are many kinds of men and many millions of each kind of them, there are many kinds of women and there are many millions made of each kind of them, there are many children of these many men and many women and the kinds are often very much mixed up in them but more and more the kind that really is in each one of them more and more as one knows them it comes out to be clear in each one of them. Some kinds of men have, in most of the millions made of such a kind of them, have in them more of an individual being than most of the millions of some other kind of men. Some kinds of them have much more of an individual being as a nature in them than there is in other kinds of men. Each kind of them has in the many millions of that kind of them more, in some of them of individual feeling than there is in others of them. All this will come out slowly as it is written down about them, it comes out slowly in the living that every body is every day doing with all the many kinds of them, the many kinds of men the many kinds of women and the many kinds of children that have these many men and many women mixed up in them.