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

by Gertrude Stein

  Mrs. Hersland had then sometimes troubles with the families of them. Mrs. Hersland had her important feeling from servants who were with her in her middle living. Mrs. Hersland had from some of them an injured feeling, Mrs. Hersland had with some of them an angry feeling, sometimes it was with one of them sometimes with some one of the family of one of them. Mrs. Hersland had in her nothing of impatient feeling, she could have in her an injured and a bright angry feeling. Once one foreign girl had come to her from some one in Bridgepoint who had sent her because she wanted to go and this friend thought she would be a good servant for Mrs. Hersland to have with her. The girl did not want to stay, she wanted to go back to Bridgepoint, she said Mrs. Hersland should help send her, Mrs. Hersland had then an angry feeling in her, she said she did not have to help send her. The girl said she would have to help a little to send her, Mrs. Hersland said she would either not give her anything to help her or she would pay everything for her, she never would help to send her away from her, she would pay the whole thing for her, it was not right but she would pay the whole thing for her, she would do it all or nothing for her, she did not have to do anything for her, she would do the whole thing for her. Mrs. Hersland had in her a bright angry feeling inside her, it was wrong that a girl should behave so toward her. Mrs. Hersland had then rightly an angry feeling in her. She paid everything for her. This was Mrs. Hersland with an injured feeling inside her and an angry feeling then in her. There was nothing in her of impatient feeling in her, with servants she had never anxious feeling in her, she had in her sometimes an injured feeling and then an angry feeling and then she would send the one that had given it to her away from her, then she would pay for some one all expenses for her, when she had in her an angry feeling inside her there was no half measure in her, often she only had an injured feeling in her; this time she had more angry than injured feeling in her. No one was then afraid of her, there was no terror in her anger for any one around her. Mostly she would then pay everything any one could in any kind of way ask of her to show them the right angry feeling in her.

  There was never in Mrs. Hersland a bitter feeling in the injured or angry feeling in her with any servant in the house with her. She did not have in her impatient feeling, she did not have with any of them or the families of them an anxious feeling in her, she had inside her sometimes with them or with the families of them an injured sometimes an angry feeling in her, this never gave to her never made bitterness for her, Mrs. Hersland never had really any bitterness inside her, later she had a little dreary weakening sadness in her, later she had a scared feeling in her from her husband and her children grown big around her she never had in her impatient feeling in her she never had any bitterness in her, she had in her middle living for the servants and governesses and seamstresses and dependents sometimes an injured feeling sometimes a bright anger.

  To have an injured or an angry feeling in one is very common in ordinary living. Injured or angry feeling may be in one with impatient feeling or with anxious feeling and it may be in one without any such being then in that one. Mrs. Hersland had in her living, mostly in the beginning and in the middle of her middle living very much of such feeling, not much with her husband or her children but with the servants and seamstresses and governesses and dependents all those that gave to her the feeling of herself inside her.

  The independent dependent kind of men and women have in them, most of them, mostly in their injured and their angry feeling a sense of impatient feeling or anxious feeling with a sense of their own virtue their own right inside them, they have not in them then mostly a consciousness of angry or injured feeling in them, to them then their angry feeling or their injured feeling flows from the outraged virtue or goodness in them, to themselves then they have not any angry or injured feeling as filling them but flowing from them because it is natural to have such a thing in them when their goodness or virtue is outraged by some one. Mrs. Hersland was not such a one, she had in her dependent independent being in her, it was to her rightly an injured or an angry feeling she had then in her when some one around her did what it was not right for them to do toward her, she had then to herself rightly an injured and an angry feeling in her and to herself it was the injured or angry feeling that filled her, it was not right for the girl to ask Mrs. Hersland to help send her to Bridgepoint when the girl had no reason to leave her, it was right then for Mrs. Hersland to have in her an injured and then an angry feeling in her, it was then to Mrs. Hersland inside her that she had in her, rightly an angry and an injured feeling, then she would show it by doing nothing to help the girl who had no right to ask it of her or she would pay all her expenses for her. Mrs. Hersland had rightly in her toward her an injured and an angry feeling, to herself then this was all that was then in her, it was not to her her own virtue or her own goodness that was then the important thing inside her it was the injured and the angry feeling in her, to satisfy that she paid all the expenses for her, she would do that or nothing for her, it was not to her her own virtue or her own goodness that was to herself urging her to do this for the girl who asked of her what she had no business to ask of her, it was to herself in her the injured and the angry feeling in her that needed to have this action to make it quiet inside her, it was to satisfy this in her that she would do anything or nothing for the girl who had asked her to help her when she had no right to ask her, it was not then to herself in her a sense of goodness and virtue in her; this makes of her her kind of them the kind that has resisting and not attacking as the bottom nature in them; she was of this kind of them then she had resisting not attacking in her as the bottom nature of her.

  Mrs. Hersland was of this kind of them then, she had resisting as her way of being. This is not always clear in the beginning sometimes it is the resisting that is in appearance like attacking, sometimes the attacking that has stubbornness or weakness in it like resisting but more in their living this nature in them comes out of them in the repeating that is in all being.

  And so always whenever Mrs. Hersland had an injured or an angry feeling in her she did such a thing to satisfy herself inside her. This will come out more and more in her the kind of injured and angry feeling it was natural to have in her and the way it was natural for such feelings to come out of her. More this will be a history of these feelings in her, more and more this will be a history of the different ways the two kinds there are of men and women and all the kinds of the two kinds of them have every kind of feeling have every kind of way of having every feeling come out from them. Sometime then there will be more telling of the way Mrs. Hersland had injured and angry feeling. Sometime then there will be a history of every kind of feeling Mrs. Hersland had in her in her living and every way every feeling came out of her in her living. There will be then in the daily living of each one of the Hersland children there will be then in the history of the daily living of each one of the three of them a history of all the feeling and the way it came out of the mother of them the way it came out and so any one could see by looking that she was her kind of them the dependent independent kind of them the kind that have resisting as the bottom of them, the kind that have in them to themselves rightly in them an injured and an angry feeling and when they have this in them have not in them strongest inside them the sense of their own virtue or goodness then, they have then in them as the strongest thing then to themselves inside them this injured or angry feeling. Mrs. Hersland was of this kind of them then the dependent independent kind of women. Sometime there will be a long history of the two kinds of them and the feeling in them and the way feeling comes out of them.

  There was then in the Hersland middle living pleasant enough living for all of them on the ten acre place with servants and seamstresses and governesses in the house with them.

  As I was saying Mrs. Hersland had different seamstresses to do different kinds of sewing for herself and her children. This is now a history of all of them.

  Sometime there is a history of each one, of every one who ever has living
in them and repeating in them and has their being coming out from them in the repeating that is always in all being. Sometime there is a history of every one. Sometime there will be a history of every kind of men and women. Sometime there is a history of each one. There must be such a history of each one for the repeating in them makes a history of them. The repeating of the kinds of them makes a history of the kinds of them, the repeating of the different parts and ways of being makes a history in many ways of every one. This is now a history of some. This will be sometime a history of many kinds of them. Any one who looks at each one will see coming out from them the bottom nature of them and the mixing of other nature or natures with the bottom nature of them.

  Every one then has a history in them by the repeating that comes out from them. There are some who will have sometime the whole repeating of each one they have around them, they will have the whole history of each one, there is repeating then always in every one, there is repeating always of the kinds of all women and men. There is repeating then always in every one; that makes a history of each one always coming out of them. There is always repeating in every one but such repeating always has in it a little changing; the whole repeating then that is always coming, the whole repeating that comes out from them every one who has living in them, the whole repeating then in them and coming out from each one is a whole history of each one.

  Repeating then is always coming out of every one, always in the repeating of every one and coming out of them there is a little changing. There is always then repeating in all the millions of each kind of men and women, there is repeating then in all of them of each kind of them but in every one of each kind of them the repeating is a little changing. Each one has in him his own history inside him, it is in him in his own repeating, in his way of having repeating come out from him, every one then has the history in him, sometime then there will be a history of every one; each one has in her her own history inside her, it is in her in her own repeating in her way of having repeating come out from her, every one then has the history in her, sometime then there will be a history of every one. Sometime then there will be a history of every kind of them every kind of men and women with every way there ever was or is or will be repeating of each kind of them.

  The history of each one then is a history of that one and a piece of the history of their kind of men and women. Now there will be a history of one and then there will be histories of many more of them. Always then there will be long histories of each one.

  There are then many things every one has in them that come out of them in the repeating everything living have always in them, repeating with a little changing just enough to make of each one an individual being, to make of each repeating an individual thing that gives to such a one a feeling of themselves inside them. I said each repeating in each one has each time in it a little changing, this sometimes comes nearly not to happening. Some keep on copying their repeating in their talking in the moving of their hands and shoulders and bodies in living, some keep on copying others around them, some have almost nothing in them of themselves inside them, every one has though always in them their own bottom nature their own kind of being, that is always in them repeating, that is always in them a real being.

  Many go on all their life copying their own kind of repeating, many go on all their life copying some one else or some other kind of men or women's kind of repeating, some kind of being that they have not in them. Every one mostly has in them their own repeating sometime in their living, this is real being in them, many millions are always all through their living copying their own repeating, some have this in them because they are indolent in living, it is easier for such of them just to go on with an automatic copying of their own repeating rather than really live inside them their repeating. This is now a history of such a one.

  There are then always the two kinds in all who are or were or ever will have in them human being, there are then always to my thinking in all of them the two kinds of them the dependent independent, the independent dependent; the first have resisting as the fighting power in them, the second have attacking as their natural way of fighting. As I was saying this is not always easy to know about them, it is not always easy to know which kind of these two kinds of being are in any one, it is hard to know it about them, it is hard to describe what I mean by the names I give to them. There are then these two kinds and always every one of all of them who have human being in them are of one kind or the other kind of them. Often, as I am saying, resisting is like attacking, the attacking like resisting. Often the meekness of the patient submission of the dependent side of the dependent independent kind of them seems like the sensitive scared yielding of the dependent side of the independent dependent kind of them. Each kind of them has in them their own way of loving, their own way of eating and drinking, their own way of sleeping, sitting resting and working, their own way of learning and thinking, their own way of having themselves come out from inside them; always there are these two ways of being, mostly one who knows it well about them can tell which kind each one is of them, mostly one knows about them by always looking at them as the repeating in each one makes a history of that one. Sometime then there will be a history of all of them.

  Sometime there will be a history of all of them. Sometime there will be written a long book, a history of all of them of the two kinds of them. Sometime it will be clear to some one the whole history of every kind of men and women, the two kinds of them, the kinds in each kind of them, the mixture of all of them. Sometime then will be written a long book, a history of every kind of men and women and all the kind of being in them.

  Now this is a history of one of them. As I was saying Mrs. Hersland had three seamstresses working for her when she was living in Gossols in her middle living when she was strongest in her feeling of being herself inside her in her living. One of these was living in a part of Gossols between the part where the Herslands were living where no other rich people were living and the part where mostly all the rich people were living. She had this one to do most of the making her child Martha's better clothing and her own ordinary dresses for her ordinary daily living. Then she had one who lived in a part nearer where the rich people were living, she went to this one. Then there was the woman who lived in a small house near them, the woman who had the three daughters who all of them sometime had beauty in them.

  The one who lived in between always worked twice a year in the fall and in the spring to make dresses for Mrs. Hersland and Martha and sometimes for the governess then living in the house with them. She always came to work in the house with them, she always ate there with them, and sometimes when she was in a hurry to finish her work she remained altogether in the house sleeping and eating. Her name was Lillian Rosenhagen. She was a large woman, she had black hair and she was tall and she had long heavy fingers that were tapering and heavy again just where the nails were commencing. Lillian Rosenhagen was a stupid woman and never said anything but the children could never forget having had her in the house with them. She was of the kind of them and there are always many always being made of them who have it in them to be stupid, to be heavy, to be drifting, and yet one never forgets them when one has known them, they do nothing but they have a physical something in them that makes them.

  Every kind of history about any one is important then, every kind of way of thinking about any one is important to those who need a whole history of every one.

  There is then a whole to living, mostly everybody has for this an anxious feeling, some have not any such anxious feeling to the whole of them, many have the anxious feeling in every minute of their living, every minute is a whole to them in an anxious feeling which each minute ends them.

  As I was saying there are many ways of having anxious feeling in them in men and women. Anxious feeling in some is almost the whole living that they have in them, some have the anxious feeling every minute of their living every minute is a whole to them with an anxious feeling which each minute ends them. So
me have very much anxious feeling in them but not every minute in their living, with some of such of them anxious feeling never makes an end to them, it goes on repeating in them but it does not ever to them make an end of them. Lillian Rosenhagen was such a one. Anxious feeling was in her always inside her coming to be strong in her whenever any little new thing was demanded of her, whenever she had to finish arranging anything whenever in a way there was any adjustment inside her to anything in her working or to any one around her.

  There are then many ways for men and for women to have anxious feeling in them. Sometimes it is a wonder to any one who sees anxious feeling in almost every one, in every one's making a bargain, or selling, or buying, or hearing some one calling, or going to sleep, or wakening, in cooking, in ordering, many times in eating, in drinking, in coming and going. Mostly every one has in them more or less an anxious feeling, mostly every one has in them more or less impatient feeling, some have more anxious than impatient feeling in them, some have almost the same amount in them of anxious as impatient feeling in them, some have much more impatient than anxious feeling in them, many have every minute impatient feeling in them and every minute there is a beginning for them, many have impatient feeling in them and this has nothing in it of beginning for them, some have impatient feeling in them as always an ending to them inside them, many have it in them just as their own way of going on with their living. Anxious feeling can be in some as always an ending to them, it can be in some as always a beginning in them of living, there are some who have it in them as their own way of living.

  In many, anxious being is impatient feeling and sometime there will be a history of many of such of them.

  Lillian Rosenhagen had always repeating in her an anxious feeling, she had very little in her of impatient feeling. As I was saying Lillian Rosenhagen was very good at sewing, she was very steady at working, she had always in her repeating an anxious feeling when she had to do any ending or beginning.