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

by Gertrude Stein

  In his country house in his middle living he had in him in his daily living eating and sleeping and drinking and loving and impatient feeling and hearty laughing. He had his wife in the house with him and his children and servants and a governess and near him living in the small houses around the ten acre place where they were living in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living he had, for him, poor people around him who all liked to have him as a neighbor to them. In his home living he had to him in him his feeling about ways of eating ways of doctoring ways of educating his children, he had in him his wife who was sometimes then in his middle living when his children were first beginning in them their individual feeling resisting to him, she was then still to him important for him, she was then still in him as a tender feeling, she was then still to him when she was outside him a pleasant joke to him, she could then still a little affect him by resisting to him. She was then in her strongest feeling of being important to herself inside her to her feeling, she was then in the strongest living with a man to be a husband to her in the rich way that was the natural way of being to her feeling, with her children still inside her to her feeling, with servants and a governess and a seamstress in the house with her in her daily living and she was of their daily living but above them in her right feeling of rich living, with around her the for her poor queer people near her, with the occasional visiting from rich people who did not live near her to disturb her from the life around her where she was cut off from the right rich living that was the natural way of being for her, and which made in her her feeling of being important to herself inside her and so then in her middle living she had in her the feeling stronger in her than any of her family who had gone on living the life that was the natural way of living for her the feeling of being important to herself inside her.

  As I was saying men and women have many of them in them their individual feeling—their way of feeling it in them about themselves to themselves inside them about the ways of being they have in them. Some have almost nothing of such a feeling in them, some have it a little in them, some have it in them always as a conscious feeling, some have it as a feeling of themselves inside them, some have it as a feeling of themselves inside them as important to them, some have it as a feeling of being important to themselves inside them as being always in them, some have it as being important to the others around them, some have it as being inside them that there is nothing existing except their kind of living, some have it that they feel themselves inside them as big as all the world around them, some have it that they are themselves the only important existing in the world then and in some of them for forever in them—these have in them the complete thing of being important to themselves inside them. Some have it as a feeling of being important in them from things they are doing, from religion in them, from the way of living they have in them, from the clothes they have on them, from the way they have of eating, from the way they have of drinking, from the way they have of sleeping, some from the way loving comes out from them, some from the way anger comes out of them, some have a feeling of importance in them from the kind of living they have in them and the others around them have in them, there are many ways of having a feeling of one's self inside one, there are many ways of having an important feeling in one, there are some who have in them a feeling of importance inside but not a feeling of importance of themselves to themselves inside them then, there are some who have inside them an important feeling in them but not an individual feeling in them, there are many ways for men and women to have themselves inside to them and this is a history of some of them.

  Mr. David Hersland had in him a feeling of being as big as all the world around him, he had in him a strong feeling of beginning, of fighting of brushing people away from around him, of hearty laughing, in his middle living of pleasant every day living in his country house living. He had an individual feeling in him but it was the whole of him and the world around that was him to him, he never had in him a splitting of himself to himself until his children in his later living when they were angry with him for the impatient feeling he had in him told him what they thought of him told him how he never came to the right end of fighting which is winning, told him how he went away from those in front of him when to himself he was brushing people away from around him. David Hersland had an individual feeling in him, it was being as big as all the world around him, it was being big in beginning. In the ending of his middle living his wife was not important to him, she did not give to him anything in him of individual feeling. In the ending of his middle living he got it more and more from his children, a little from the governess and servants in the house with him, a little from the people living near him. At the ending of his middle living his wife was not any longer important to him she no longer gave him to himself inside him individual feeling.

  Some men have it in them in their loving to be attacking, some have it in them to let things sink into them, some let themselves wallow in their feeling and get strength in them from the wallowing they have in loving, some in love are melting—strength passes out of them, some in their loving are worn out with the nervous desire in them, some have it as a dissipation in them, some have it as clean attacking, some have it as a beginning feeling—some have such a feeling always in them, some have it as the ending always of them, some always are children in their loving grimy little dirt then fills them, some are boys in their loving all their living—in their loving reckless attacking is strong in them, some are always young men in their loving, some have it in them like regular middle age living in them, some are old men in loving and this is in them all through their living. There are many kinds of loving in men, more and more this will be a history of them, there are many ways for women to have loving in them this will come out more and more in the history of women as it is here to be written, there are many ways for men to have loving in them, there are many ways that loving comes out from them, there are many ways for women and for men to have loving in them, this is a history of some of them, sometime there will be a history of all of them. There are many kinds of men and many millions of each kind of them, there are many ways of loving that men have in them and their way of loving makes their kind of man, there are many ways of loving in men and having loving come out from them and this comes in many of them from the nature of them their bottom nature in them that makes their kind of men, sometimes from the bottom nature in them mixed with the other nature or natures in them natures that are the bottom nature, the way of having loving in them, of other kind of men. There are many ways of having loving in them in men, there are many ways of having loving in them in women, more and more there will be a history of them, sometime there will then be a history of all of them.

  David Hersland in his loving was of his kind of man having loving as beginning in him having loving as getting strength from wallowing, he was of his kind of man but loving was not very strong in him. He was in his loving, of his kind of man, not very strong in loving. Loving was in him always as a part of daily living but was not so very strong in him, not so strong in him as in many millions of h is kind of men, there was more in him of being strong in beginning, of being to himself as big as all the world around him.

  In his beginning family living his wife was in him as a tender feeling, she was a woman to him, she was a tender feeling inside him, she was a little a resistance to him and a little a joke to him, sometimes a leading for him for in her beginning with him she had a little a power to control him but always this was less and less in her for him.

  David Hersland did not have it in him to be so strong in loving as many men of his kind of men have it in them. Many men of his kind of men have it in them to need the woman as a warm feeling inside them and she has always then a power in her over him; all men who have this nature in them the getting strength in wallowing as the bottom nature of them and with a beginning feeling too always then in them have it in them in their middle living to have a woman in them in their feeling as a warm thing in
them, in some of them as a flower in them to their feeling; some have loving then more and some less in their living. In his later living David Hersland had more need of a woman in him but that was not to be as his wife was in him a tender feeling a live thing in him it was to fill him up where he had shrunk from the outside of him, it was another kind of woman he needed then, not a beautiful thing inside him to be in him as a tender feeling but a thing to be alive, domineering, diplomatic, moving, entering under his skin by feeling herself him managing him and important to him in her filling him where he was shrunk away from the outside of him.

  In the beginning of his living his wife was to him a certain power for him, inside him a tender beautiful feeling in him, outside him a joke to him and a resisting thing to him in little things for the ways he had in him, always having children in her for him.

  There are many ways of family living, there are many ways of being a man to a wife, to his children, and to the servants living in the house with him, of being the wife to her husband in her living, being to her children and to the servants and dependents of her daily living, and then the children and then the servants to all of them. Mr. Hersland had his way of feeling about Mrs. Hersland and that is clear now in his feeling from the beginning to the ending of his middle living and then she died away and left him. In the beginning of his middle living she was a little a joke to him in her resisting and she had a little power in him then for the children, later she a little woman was with weakening inside in her living was lost then among the father and the resisting children, she was a little thing then to them and lost among them and more and more then she was not important to them and then she died away and left them. In her feeling for the servants and governesses and seamstresses in her daily living she had more feeling of herself to herself inside her in her feeling than in any other part of her living. She was with them outside him to her husband then, not very important to him, sometimes with her ways with them then a little a joke to him but mostly she had her own way then and then sometimes in a blustering fashion he let her do her own way while to himself brushing her away from before him. In her living with the servants and governess and seamstress in her daily living she had a feeling of herself to herself inside her, this was more of an individual being in her than ever had been in her when she was leading with her own kind of people around her the right rich living which was the natural way of being to her. She never to herself was cut off from the living that was the natural way of living to her but in her daily living that living did not touch her, she had her daily living with only dependents around her, she was of them and above them and that gave to her her feeling of herself to herself inside her, cut off from the equal living that was the natural way of living for her.

  Her children in their younger living were to her still inside her, later they never gave to her any feeling of being important to herself inside her, more and more they were too large around her, she could suffer but they were not important in her in her feeling of herself inside her.

  Being important to one's self inside one. Being lonesome inside one. Making the world small to one to lose from one the lonesome feeling a big world feeling can make inside any one who has not it in them to feel themselves as big as any world can be around them. Being important inside one in religion can help one loose from one the lonesome feeling a big world can give to one. There are many ways of losing the lonesome feeling a big world around can give to one. Many lose it before they know they have one, many all their lives keep their world small and so they never have in them such a lonesome feeling, some need religion in them to keep them from being lost inside them from having too much in them a lonesome feeling and a big world too big for them around them, some have in them a superior sense that makes the big world around them not strong enough to give then to them a lonesome feeling inside them, some have just a busy feeling in them and that keeps them from lonesome feeling in them, some never have it come to them that there is a big world around them, there are many who never have in them any such lonesome feeling inside them their living fills them they and their family and the people around them, but many in their living find it at some time in them that they have a lonesome feeling in them; almost all men and almost all women, and mostly all of them when they were children, have such a kind of lonesome feeling at some moment in their living.

  The important feeling of one's self to one inside one in one's living is to have in one then not anything of such a lonesome feeling. Sometimes in many women and some men it is not a lonesome feeling it is a weakening in them and somebody then takes care of them, in more women there is what might be a lonesome feeling as a weakening in them and then some one takes care of them or they die away then and so escape their lonesome feeling. Many women have it in them to float off into weakening, to lose themselves in religion and so escape from any lonesome feeling. Many women have it in them to feel that it never can happen to them the last end of trouble for them, they have in them the feeling that the world can never really be too much for them, this in many of them is religion in them, they are not important to themselves inside them, they are part of the important thing and in that they can never have the last end of evil coming to them, there are many women who have in them not an important feeling of themselves to themselves inside them but they have in them the sense that the last end of a bad thing cannot destroy them, some one will take care of them, something will save them, despair can never really fill them, they can never have in them the complete sense of a lonesome feeling in them; it is like the feeling Mrs. Hersland had in her in her feeling that she was never really cut off from good rich right living which was the natural way of being to her, the for her natural way of living.

  Mrs. Hersland had in her different ways of having herself inside her, of having important feeling in her. A feeling of herself inside her would never have come to be in her if she had gone on living in the way that was natural for her. Being important to herself inside her first came to be a little in her from the knowing Sophie Shilling and her sister Pauline Shilling and the mother Mrs. Shilling, later it came to be stronger in her from the living with the governesses and seamstresses and servants and dependents and being with them but above them all the time every moment of her living, not cut off to her feeling but really cut off in her living from the rich living that was for her the natural way of being.

  Many women have in them the way of feeling that makes it for them that the last end of a bad thing cannot come to them, the last end of losing cannot come to them, the last end of trouble cannot destroy them; many of such of them have not it in them to have an important feeling of themselves to themselves inside them, they have a feeling that they are a part of important being and the last end of a bad thing cannot destroy them, despair never can fill them, somehow something some one will then take care of them, the last end of a bad thing can never to the feeling of such ones ever come to really destroy them. Many of such ones have weakening in them and some one then takes care of them or else they die away and they never know it inside them that the last end of a bad thing has destroyed them, to themselves then in dying despair does not fill them, something to the last moment of their living something someone to such of them then in the last moments of their living will take care of them, but they are weakening and they are dead then but they have not had the lonesome feeling, despair has not ever been really inside them. Many have in them such a feeling, many have it in them as a religion. Many women who have never in them a really lonesome feeling have not it in them the thing that keeps it out of them as weakening they have it in them as resisting, they have it in them as superior feeling, they have it in them as going on always in living, as managing everything that can touch them, as being busy every moment with something, despair can never fill such of them, they never have in them a really lonesome feeling.

  There are many ways then for many women not to have in them ever in their living anything of a really lonesome feeling inside them. There are then many ways of
not having room in them for such a lonesome feeling, there are many ways of losing it out of them when it is a little in them, there are many ways of having such a lonesome feeling, there are some ways of having such a lonesome feeling always inside in one.

  Mrs. Hersland had in her then in her middle living a real feeling of being important to herself inside her in her feeling. If she had gone on in the living that was the natural way of being for her this never would have come to be real inside her, this would have been in her a real important feeling from the living that was natural to her but never a really important feeling of herself to herself inside her. She always would have had in her a feeling inside her that in her mother came out in the dreary trickling that was, almost all her later living, all that was of her. A little of such a feeling there would have always been in the daughter if she had gone on living the life that was the natural way of living for her but such a feeling would never come to be in her as it never came to be in her mother a feeling of herself to herself inside her, a feeling of herself to herself as important inside her. Some of her sisters and one brother had a little of the important feeling of the father, he had had a being that in any kind of living would have given a feeling of himself to himself as a religion. Mrs. Hersland had not in her any such a thing inside her, she had in her only the feeling that gave to her mother the dreary trickling that made all her, this in the daughter never had in it sadness and sorrow inside her it was in her a gentle pleasant timid sometimes an angry sometimes hurt feeling in her, in the living that was not the natural way of living for her it came to be inside her a feeling of herself to herself as important in her.