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

by Gertrude Stein

  There are a very great many men and women and they are very well educated intelligent ones who are very certain that a river can not flow north because water can never be going up hill in a natural way of flowing. They are very certain of this thing and when one understands it about them, some of them, it is astonishing that they can really be thinking such a thing and sometimes it takes almost a quarrelling to make them realise that a river can How north and that north is not going up hill. They are knowing then that north is not going up hill when they think of it as travelling, they think of north as up hill when they think of it as water flowing and this is very common. Such things then are very common, every kind of way there ever can be of thinking feeling believing knowing doing is common and the way mostly every one has it in them the way one has it in them of knowing feeling, believing thinking doing is a thing that every one knowing that one if they really thought that one was really believing feeling thinking knowing doing as that one really is, was and will be thinking feeling doing believing knowing would be thinking that one a crazy one, that one a fool, that one a liar and a bad one, would be afraid or haling or despising or pitying that one or completely puzzled by that one. Mostly then no one really is ever believing any other one really can be believing feeling thinking doing knowing, the things the other one really is feeling believing thinking doing knowing.

  Kinds of being in women and in men is a peculiar thing, that there are always the same kinds of them existing is a peculiar thing. That there are so very many always existing of each kind of them is a peculiar thing. That there are so very many always existing of every kind of them is a peculiar thing. When one sees a very great many of any thing, if it is jewels, or exotic fruits or old furniture or any precious thing in any place then always one is thinking they must be cheap there, they have so many of them it must be that they are selling them cheap they have so many of them and one mostly always has this feeling and this is the kind of feeling very many men and women have about men and women, there are so many they must be cheap things and one can use them any way one can be wanting them without any thinking about them and this is a very natural thing and then when it is a store and one wants to buy the rare thing or something where they have so many of them and then one finds out one has to pay them the same as in the stores where there are only a few of these things that they have for selling and that is always astonishing, that is to some always a certain shock to them and this is now beginning to be very true of men and women everywhere where men and women are living, they come just as high where there are a great many of them as where there are a few of them. But this is another thing, always to my feeling there are a very great many men and women always existing, always to my feeling there are a very great many of each kind of them always existing, always to my feeling each one of them is an expensive thing to be learning to be understanding and now I begin again.

  I will now begin a little the writing about goodness and religion and sensitiveness and feeling and loving, and realising and under standing and thinking and doing and knowing in every one, in every kind there is in men and women.

  One builds up other people's convictions, other people's intuitions other people's loving and virtue and religion, this is a very common thing. Some build up other ones convictions, other one's intuitions, other ones loving and virtue and religion, this is a very common thing. Very many men do it for very many women, very many women do it for men, and for other women, and for children, very many men do it for very many children, very many men do it for very many men, very many do it for themselves in their living, very many women, very many men do it for themselves in their living do the creating of their intuitions, their convictions, their loving, their virtue, their religion.

  It is very interesting the way it happens sometimes. Some one one is loving tells one to do something to do it very often and then the one loving that one knows it then will know where the one told to do it does that thing, the other one who is to be doing that thing is not in the beginning certain that the one loving that one knows it when that one does that thing, the thing the other one loving that one tells that one to do very often for the one loving and that one then not with that one doing that thing will know that that one is doing that thing. It happens then very often that in the beginning the one doing the thing the one loving them is asking of them so that the other one not being with her or him then will know that he or she is then doing that thing it happens very often that the other one that is asked to be doing a thing is not then certain that the other one the one that has the believing that the other one doing that thing that one will be knowing then when that one is not with that other one who is doing a thing, it happens very often that in the beginning the one of whom the doing has been asked by the other one the one certain that he or she will be knowing it when he or she is not with that one it happens very often that in the beginning the one not certain that the other will know it does it with a different feeling, does it with a very careful feeling then and later then when that one is certain that the other one is not certain when that one has been doing that thing because of tests such a one has been making it happens sometimes such a one goes on carefully doing that thing religiously doing that thing would be a way of stating it then for it would then be a ritualistic thing and there are others who would not let themselves ever test such a thing but go on always doubting but always more or less doing the thing, not from the loving in them but from the belief in them built up so in them that the other one really has intuition and that is the way it goes very often with having intuition, always then some one gives to some one conviction of intuition, some give it to themselves in living, very often others give it to them, there are then very many men and women and some of them have more some less sensitiveness in them and always it is hard to tell it of them of men and women what is sensitiveness in them what is made inside them by themselves by every one they are knowing in their living.

  Dead is dead. To be dead is to be really dead said one man and there are very many men who really feel this in them, to be dead is to be really dead and that is the end of them. To be dead is to be really dead and yet perhaps that is not really the end of them, some men feel this in them. Dead is dead yes dead is really dead yes to be dead is to be really dead yes, to be dead is to be really dead and that is the real ending of them yes, but still, yes to be dead is to be dead, to be really dead yes, and yet always there is religion always existing and it is better to have everything, to be dead is to be dead some men are feeling knowing thinking believing in them, very many men are feeling thinking knowing believing it in them and some of them some of such of them have it in them that they know that religion is always existing, dead is dead, that they know pretty entirely completely really in them yes dead is dead they really know that in them, religion always is existing, dead is dead yes that is true then, and then they go on in living always doing their religion. Dead is dead yes that is certain and they go on having their religion and they are not believing and their religion is believing that dead is not dead, to be dead is to be not really dead, dead is dead of that they are really certain some of these then and they go on then having their religion doing everything in their religion and to their religion to be dead is not to be really dead of that their religion is almost certain and they are almost certain in them always that to be dead is to be really dead, yes dead is dead they know that in them, they know that in them, they do everything any one can do in their religion and their religion is very certain that to be dead is not to be really dead and these men are very certain that to be dead is to be dead, that dead is dead. This then is very common. There are these then and there are then those that have it in them in living that dead is dead only partly in them and in them is the very constant realisation that every one, they themselves, are believing that religion is a right thing to be having and religion is always saying though you are dead you are living and these then could know it as an active living in them that dead is dead, that is in instin
ctive living in them but always in their talking, very many of them always in their feeling, some of them always in their doing, some of them in their thinking, some of them always in their believing have it in them that every one has religion in living, they have religion in them, dead is not dead then everybody is of this then very certain and always dead is dead is the simply instinctive living in these men then and very many of these then have it in them that they are those having concrete action that is very often very different from what these are certain all decent men and they themselves are always doing, these then can as I was saying kill the butterfly in the morning because they are so good to their son when in the evening just before they completely persuaded him the son that killing butterflies is a cruel action no good man should be doing, and some of such of them as I was saying can have it in them that they have done something very often and later in their living a daughter can write to them that what that daughter is doing that is a disgrace to the family then came to be a way of doing from the things the father was often showing to her when she was a young one and such a one then can have a paralytic stroke from the shock of realisation, of dead is dead and that by religion to his saying that dead is not dead and of the difference in him of general and concrete conviction.

  There are a very great many then that have as a concrete realisation always in them that dead is dead, that things are as they see them, that they are doing things when they are doing them and these then can have it in them that they realise as a generalisation that to be dead is not to be so very really dead, that things are not perhaps what they are to them, that they are living with other men around them who have it in them to have religion in them which is certain that to be dead is not to be a really dead one and these then have it in them to equilibrate themselves to this opinion, the opinion the conviction of being not dead when they are dead of having virtue in them when they are not doing any good thing of never doing anything any good man cannot be doing when really they are doing that thing very often and this is a generalised sense in them all through their living and always then they are really living the dead is dead living as a concrete living. To some having this equilibrating, this generalised conception is only sentimental in them, in some it is a way of being important to themselves inside them to make it strongly in them this generalised equilibration in them, to very many it is a very simple thing of being like every one for every one to mostly any one is like this in their living is being of a conviction that dead is not really dead, that good is progressing, that every one is a good one in some way of endeavoring. This is a very common thing then and always and always it will in its simple in its complicated forms will be interesting, will be illuminating in the being and the living of Alfred Hersland and Mr. Herman Dehning and his son George Dehning.

  Explaining ones vices by ones virtues is one way of feeling, thinking, believing, knowing, thinking believing, feeling, knowing oneself inside one in living. This is a very different thing from that which I have been just describing as sometimes perplexing, as very common, the generalised conception which is of virtue in many men and many women and the concrete feeling and acting that is not of virtue in them. Explaining ones vices by ones virtues then is one way of feeling thinking knowing believing the being inside in one different from that I have been just describing, different from the being in Redfern which I was once describing which was as I was then saying was an explaining ones virtues by the vices in them. There is then explaining ones virtues by ones vices and others then explain their vices by the virtues in them. There are certainly a very great many ways of having virtuous feeling in them in men and women and yet after all there are not such a very great many ways of them, there are a good many ways though and this is now some more description of virtuous feeling, being, thinking, knowing believing, in men and in women. Later then there will be very much discussion of different kinds of sensibility and way of having it in them in men and women.

  A man having it in him to have the generalised conviction of good being as completely him and the concrete acting of being a mean spirited and tyrannical man in living and always taking everything he can that it is not dangerous for him to be taking and never giving anything that is not taken from him, one of such a kind of them can have it in him to be always speaking and very often in his talking it comes out again and again that he is a good man, and a noble man, and a very angry one whenever any one ever is doing anything that he knows of them that is not a fine action a good generous way of doing, thinking, believing, feeling and sometime perhaps some one might say to him a sister-in-law or a brother-in-law of him, of such a one, why did you do that mean thing to that man, and he would then say to such a one, because he was such a mean man he deserved all I could give him to get the best of him, and then the brother-in-law or the sister-in-law might say then to him, but you say you are such an awfully good man how could such a good man as you are do such a mean thing to any one, and then such a one would be answering, a good man could do such a thing to another mean man, didn't I do that thing to that mean kind of a man and don't you know don't every one always know it in him that I am a good man, you know that, and then there would be no answer that could touch him. Such men are very common, they are very often not full up with religion these are good men that is the conviction that is the feeling of themselves inside them to themselves in them, that is the complete being in them to themselves completely in all the believing, feeling, doing, thinking ever in them. These then are not being good in the name of god or in the conviction of religion, they never do a bad thing in secret as some do who are good men in the name of religion or virtue or of god can do it and then not be letting their right hand know what their left hand is doing, no, such a one as I have been describing has it as a completed generalised conviction his own virtue as him and is himself completely constantly himself to himself in his being, has the complete thing of being important in all living from the completed realisation that he is completely a good noble generous human being and such a one never has any need of any secret action, such a one tells every one everything he does in living, any mean thing, any bad thing, anything, for always it is there completely in him that he did this thing and a good man could, would, does do that thing, he did that thing, he a good man who never does anything he should not be doing did this thing does something and so it is right for him to do that thing and he can tell it as a thing he was proud to do in living, everything he ever does in living is a thing he is proud to be telling to every one, he is completely a good man, he has no need of secret living, everything he is ever doing is a thing he can be boasting he was doing for he is completely a good man, he is not a good man in the name of religion of god or of his country or of his profession, he is a good man completely a good one to himself inside him, that is important being in him, that is his being to himself inside him, that is all being in him, he is the complete thing of a generalised conviction of virtuous being.

  All these kinds of ways then of having virtuous being, feeling, thinking, believing, doing, knowing inside in one are very interesting to be describing, studying, realising, understanding. It makes then one way of realising kinds in men and women the realising of the different ways different ones have virtuous feeling in them. I have already been describing some of them, I will now be describing others of them.

  Many have virtuous feeling from something inside them. Many need company to have it, this is very common. Many need a leader for it, this is in very many women and very many men. Some need drama to support it, some need lying to help it, some always need to leave out something in their telling anything to have it, some need always to leave out something in their feeling, in their doing, in their knowing, in their realising, in their believing, and they have it mostly in them, some need always to leave out pieces of everything they have in them to make for themselves the complete creation of virtuous being of themselves to themselves inside them. Many have virtuous feeling about something inside them. Some need drama to support i
t, some need lying to help it, some need company to feel it, some love it when they have it, some do not then love it, some hate it, some are it, some are burdened with it, some enjoy it, some never are very certain they really ever have it. Virtuous feeling in men and women is what I am now a little describing.

  Some then and these are now another kind of them from any I have been describing, some then have an ideal in them and always they poetically, romantically, dramatically, idealistically, sentimentally conceive themselves as doing that thing and they are not good at inventing and they are always doing everything and they leave out mostly everything in telling anything and they are always then very fond of telling this thing and so they have it in them to be idealistically, romantically, sentimentally, dramatically one thing and that is always in them an ideal thing. These then are such ones as would have it in them to be to themselves supposing it is a chaste one or a forgiving one that kind of one completely in them. Being with them, knowing them, some of them, it is climbing mountains for always when you are thinking you have heard the whole thing about the ideal they are to themselves in themselves to every one a new peak comes up behind and you begin again climbing, they are not really chaste then such a one yes that is certain they will sometime tell that thing but the claim then comes from a new kind of relation in them that is a real one of a completely chaste thing, they violate that one and then a new one is to them the complete thing of idealistic romantic chastity for them and always in their telling they leave out everything that can destroy the truth of the latest idealistic chastity in them, and then every one knows of that new violation and they are then creating a new idealism and again they are telling everything with leaving out in their telling, feeling, thinking, believing anything that shows another violation they have been making of their idealistic conception, and these then go on and they go on and everybody laughs about them that such a one should have idealistic romantic conceptions of chaste being and always this one has a new one and always this one then in telling is leaving out everything that tells the last violation of the latest idealistic romantic dramatic conception of chaste being and these then are lying but not by invention but by idealistic romantic dramatic sentimental omission and that is then very amusing and I know just now several of such a kind of them and everybody can laugh at them sometime.