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

by Gertrude Stein

  Those having this kind of being have as I was saying much nervous being that is not energy in them as attacking being, as loving, though it is very much like repressed active being or repressed loving being, but it is not that in them. This so far is clear to me. I am telling all this now, now when it is still a little a puzzle to me.

  So then this one had all the ways of having loving being this kind of them can have it in them. Mostly this kind in men and women have a good deal of loving being in them, though in many of them it does not in them come to loving any man or any woman for as I was saying attacking being is not active in them, and in many of them loving being is just there in them, being there in them as nervous being is in them which is not attacking energy in them. Generally then in this kind of them although there is much loving being in them it does not express itself in loving any particular one until some particular one having very strongly being in them enormously stimulating these makes the loving being in them active to loving that one. It is not, and this is very important to know in them and to remember of them to understand this kind of them, it is not that loving being is not awakened in them, it is very lively in most of this kind of them in every moment of the living of this kind of them, there is not restraint in this kind of them, it is that this kind of them are of the attacking kind in men and women and attacking activity is not active in them. This is now clear in them in the loving in them, in the thinking in them, in the practical living in them. It is clear to me now of them. I am not now any longer in a puzzle about them. Perhaps sometime it will be clear to some other one from the description I have been giving of them.

  So then that is loving women in them, loving men in them, but this is not the only loving feeling in them. These have in them another kind of loving feeling in them, affection for goodness and beauty and nobility in everything and in men and in women and an affection for the feeling of being able to feel inside them loving for luxury and extravagance and sinning. I am now describing this in them now when it is still a little a puzzle to me. Perhaps it will be clearer to me. Now I will tell it as clearly as I know it. I will tell it, a little confusing it as I tell it, for it is so that I now know it. Sometime I will know more of it. Then I will certainly tell more of it.

  They have then this kind of them, they have much affectionate being in them, not emotional affection in them but affection like the kind of thinking being there is in them, to making of something they were experiencing as important to them a principle in them to be always in them. Sometimes this is affection for some one, some kind of thing, for goodness, nobility and virtue and beauty and luxury and sinning and succeeding in living by doing anything. In such a one then one of this kind of them affection that is like a moral principle in them can be for any or some or all of these things that I have been naming, and then it is with these then as in their living as I have described it in them, affection for any of these things is a constant thing in them as constant as the ruling principle they embrace with their minds for living after having rationalised it from some experiencing.

  So then these ten of this kind of them all have in them the kind of loving being this kind of them have as their natural way of being. They have, most of them, very much loving being, but they have not attacking as active in them though they are of the attacking kind of being and so all of them to get it as attacking in them the loving being in them have to have strongly stimulation. Mostly all of them have much loving being always in them and mostly always every one who ever knows any one of them knows this in them but mostly always as I was saying they need very strong stimulation in the being in the other one to make it an attacking thing in them. It is not repressed in them, it is not dormant in them, it is there as evident in them to every one who knows any one of them as is the nervous being in them that is not attacking energy in them. They have then all of them, some more some less in them, but mostly all of this kind of them a good deal of such kind of loving being in them. They have in them much affection in them mostly all of them and this is in them like the thinking being in them like the rationalising some experience they have chosen and then made into a conviction like a moral principle. These then do this with a feeling for any one, with a feeling for anything, any feeling that has convinced them, they make this then, this kind of them into a conviction and they are not often getting for this new experiencing, just as they are not in working and thinking in relation to experience, as a continuous thing in living. This is clear then to some one, it is clear now to me and now I tell it, knowing it now to clearly understand it.

  The one of the ten of them that I have been describing had all these kinds of ways of having loving feeling strongly in him in his living and so this one was perplexing.

  Now I will finish up this one. Now I will tell of my learning this one of this one coming to be a whole one to me.

  This one was for a long time baffling to me. I was telling every one of this one when this one was still a very baffling one to me. Now this one is mostly all clear to me inside me. This one is now a whole one to me. This is the way I learned this one so that this one was a whole one to me.

  As I was saying every one always is repeating the whole of them. As I was saying sometimes it takes many years of hearing the repeating in one before the whole being is clear to the understanding of one who has it as being to love repeating, to know that always every one is repeating the whole of them, to have it that sometime each one is a whole one to that one. This then the way I am now describing learning this one, this then is one of the ways then that such a one, one who has it as being to love repeating, to know that always every one is repeating the whole of them, comes to a completed understanding of every one.

  This then is now a little a description of the way I learned this one so that this one is a whole one to me.

  Now I will finish up this one. Now I will tell of my learning this one, of this one coming to be a whole one inside me.

  This one was a long time perplexing to me because this one was very evidently made up of only one kind of being and yet always there were absolute contradictions in his being. There is a kind of being say in ten men, each one of these ten have the kind of being that is common to all the ten of them in him as being more emphasized in one direction than in the other direction. For instance in this kind of being that I have been just describing one of these ten will have the being in him so that there is in him much more strongly affection for succeeding in living than for other things in him, another will have the being in him so that the loving women is most strongly in him, some one will have the being in him so that rationalising, logical thinking will be the strongest thing in him, some of them will have the being in them so that in each one of them the having the thing they have made a moral conviction as moral conviction to perhaps almost fanaticism as the strongest thing in her or in him, this may be in one of these as a conviction of denying, of skepticism, of opportunism, of socialism, of monarchism, of irreligion, of anything. There are some then of this kind of them that have the power of experiencing strong affection for beauty or luxury or truth as strongest in them. In each one of these all the other things in this kind of being are in them but mostly in all of them there is one part of this kind of being that is strongest in them. This one that I have been just describing was different in this from these others that I have been just mentioning. This one had mostly everything of this kind of being as equal in strength in him.

  This one said of himself that he had à slow mind, this one had a good mind and ran himself with this mind. This one had a capacity for profound, poignant, affectionate, intuitive experiencing of beauty, in him. This one was running himself by his mind and so, often, was shutting himself off from experiencing, his mind not letting him feel beauty in anything that his mind was not already rationally admitting as a thing to be so experiencing. This one then had the affection for truth and nobility and loyalty and made of them a moral conviction, this one had the affection for luxury and succeeding in living and being
a superior being and this one made of these things a moral conviction. This one had wanting loving women in him and this one had protecting them as a moral conviction, this with loving luxury and succeeding in living and truth and loyalty and courage, and having in him the quality of not having attacking being as active in him, not having loving as attacking in him, all this made this one very confusing.

  This one then was perplexing, slowly it came to me to know it to be true of him that he had not, as this one thought he had, a slow developing mind in him, the mind in him was slow only because it went on logically working when all the actual learning had been done by this one as experiencing and it seemed slow because this one believing that his mind was developing things for him let this mind run him and keep him from poignant experiencing and so this one was to himself a person slowly developing himself and everything in him and this was not true of him, he was slow-minded to himself then not because he had any slow-minded resisting being in him but because his mind was just doing with rationalising what this one had already done with experiencing. This then led to bad things in this one in developing for this one more and more believing in his mind as slowly developing in himself and slowly developing learning, let himself be run by it himself and his mind was not as fine an instrument as his experiencing and so running himself by his mind was not for this one a true way of developing. For some of this kind of them it is the true way of developing, for this one of them it was not the true way of developing.

  It is now a little clear perhaps to some one how this one was perplexing to me to make of this one a whole one, always this one was then a puzzle to me, two things then made this one clear to me, the knowing that his mind was not a slow steadily developing thing, the recognition that although there was only one kind of being in this one it was not a unified thing in him. It was not unified in him as I found out by more thinking about this one because this one had all the parts of the kind of being that was his kind of being equally strongly in him and that then could not be a unified one for there was nothing making a bottom and so then this one was clear to me, this one was then a whole one to me, this one then was such a one as I have been describing.

  Now to give a little description of one who was of the resisting kind of being and had a different kind of complication from that in this one I have just been describing but one who also had only one kind of being in him.

  This one was one of one of the kinds in men and women that have resisting being in them. As I was saying when I was describing resisting being, these, those having resisting being in them, can have this being in them in various ways depending on the conditions so to be speaking of the substance in them, the substance that is them.

  This one that I am now beginning a little to tell about to make the fifth one of the six that I am now describing in this explaining of the way natures are and are mixed up in men and women, this one had in him resisting being and one kind of resisting being only in him and not any other kind of nature in him. This one was perplexing too to every one but this one was perplexing mostly to everyone for a different reason from that in the case of any of the others that I have been describing. This one was perplexing to every one by reason of his failing to succeed in living and this in this one was perplexing to every one that ever came to know this one. This is now a little a history a little an explanation of this one, a little a description of learning to understand the being in this one.

  This one was then of the resisting kind in men and women but as I was saying, sometimes it is not easy to know it in one whether the being in that one is of the resisting kind in them or of the attacking kind in them. This is now perhaps to some one a little clearer in the way I know it in men and women from the description I have just been giving of a kind of them that have attacking being more or less as static in them.

  It is not then always easy even after much knowing of some one to know whether the being in that one is attacking or resisting, in them.

  As I was saying, resisting being in some is in such a thin layer in them that reaction in them is as quick in them as in those having attacking being in them. In some, as I was saying, those have resisting being in them have this in them as a mass dry in the centre and only actively penetrable for reaction by them of the surface of the being in them. In these then resisting being may be very quick being, in some of such of them it may be almost brilliantly quick being in them but mostly in those of them that are brilliantly quick the central portion of them is not dead dry in them it is living enough in them to give meaning to the clever quick surface reaction in them. This is very clear to my feeling, this is very clear in my knowing of this kind in men and women, this must then sometimes be clearly made into a description. I am now beginning again to make a description of this kind of being in men and women.

  There are then many millions always living having resisting being in whom the resisting solid mass of being in each one of them is not acting and so such of them never in their living are slow in their thinking or their working. In such of them the part in them that is active in them is the surface of this being and this gives to such of them clever thinking and being. There are all varieties in this kind of them as there are in all the kinds of them in all the resisting kinds of them in all the attacking kinds of them. I am always feeling each kind of them as a substance darker, lighter, thinner, thicker, muddier, clearer, smoother, lumpier, granularer, mixeder, simpler like every kind there is of earth or of anything and always I am feeling in each one of them their kind of stuff as much in them, as little in them, as all of a piece in them, as lumps in them held together sometimes by parts of the same sometimes by other kinds of stuff in them and always sooner or later for each one I am feeling the stuff in them acting in them and so sometime each one I am ever knowing comes to be made of something really existing that is them and each one of them sometime then is to me a kind of stuff that all of a certain kind of men and a certain kind of women have in them as the material in them that is bottom nature in them, that is other nature or natures in them. Each one then sometime comes to be to me made out of a real something that always is there acting and that is that one and sometime then I really know that one, I really understand the meaning of the being in that one.

  The one I am now beginning to describe a little for there will not be here now much description of this one, this one was of the resisting kind of them and there was in this one clever being for this one was of the kind of them I have been just describing, the central mass in this one the slower fairly clear brown not completely dry mass in him was not so active in him as the surface of the mass in him that was quickly cleverly reacting. But in this one this caused trouble in him that the central mass was not quite dry in him, in some places the central mass was profoundly active and this made a complication in this one that made it that this one was not successful in living and this is very very interesting and this is now a little a description of this one in which description there will be a mingling of the history of this one, of the description of the being in this one, of the learning by some to understand the meaning of the being in this one.

  This one as I was saying never really succeeded in living and that was surprising to every one for this one was very clever and quick and energetic, this one had really a quality of bottom thinking, this one was strong in keeping going at working and always this one was not succeeding in living, was not really succeeding in anything. Always this one, though always this one was working steadily and sometimes very cleverly, this one never really finished anything. Always this one was capable of real thinking and always this one was never understanding anything in himself or in any one. And always this one knew it in him that he was failing. Always this one had an exalted nature in him and always this one was not in any way petty in his being and always this one was always failing in being decently good to any one. Always then this one was failing in living and this was perplexing him and perplexing to every one that ever came to know this one, that ever came to think abo
ut this problem. This was the history of him.

  The being in him was as I was saying resisting being and this one had in him only the one kind of being, that was the bottom nature in him, there was not in him any other nature or natures of any other kind of being in him and in this this one was like the last one I was describing. This one was very different though from the last one I was describing for this one had not all the being in him possible to the kind of being that was his kind of being. This one had however certain parts of the kind of being in him that were natural parts of his kind of being, that without other parts of that being being in him made a fundamental contradiction in his being and this was the meaning of the being in this one.

  To begin again then with thinking of a mass of being of the resisting substance very active at the surface and active inside toward the center only here and there, this was the being in this one and this caused the trouble in this one.

  Always then this one had in him active in him isolated spots in the central resisting mass in him, these were in him as the conceptions that were the starting in him of various schemes of working, mostly the actual working in him was done by the quick clever surface of him, always then these central live spots in the whole mass of him would be reacting to all the mass of work the surface of him had been doing and there was not enough self-consciousness in him to know that it was a poorer kind of work than he had wanted that he had been doing and it was to him only that that time he had not succeeded in doing the work he had been planning, and he must just begin again. So it went on with him and so he never was finishing anything and the two kinds of activity of the being in him being that they were of the same kind of being in him never came to struggle together in him they just went on in him and so he never was succeeding in his living, he never was succeeding in anything, he never could finish anything with all his steady energetic patient working.