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

by Gertrude Stein

  This happens very often with very many in loving, they are explaining that with that last one they were not real in loving, this they are now doing is really loving, always before they have not been really loving that is certain, this is very common in loving, it is very common very often in women, it is very common it is very often in men in their real feeling, in their real thinking, it is very common in men and women it is very common in loving in women and in men it is very common in loving often in men and women.

  Another form of having virtuous feeling is thinking what any one is doing is only a habit in them, and this is pretty common in men, quite common in men and in women.

  This way of feeling then is that not any one is really a bad one that is hardly any one, mostly every one does a thing because it is a habit and all that they need then is to change their habit to some other thing, some other way of doing that thing doing something and that one will be a good one. This is fairly common in men and women this way of having a feeling about virtue in other ones and in themselves then, in some it is stronger in beginning, when they are young, but in very many having this kind of conception it is in them all through their living. They are not actually ever changing the habits they have in them neither is any other one they are knowing but that does not affect their conviction that doing bad things is only a habit in themselves and in every one, and this is indeed quite common in men and in women.

  Another very common way of having virtuous feeling about oneself inside one is from having always the sense of being oneself inside one and so one oneself doing something does it, a wrong thing, with a different feeling from any other one and so it is not really then a wrong thing. This is very common even with many women many men who have not much personality in them, who do such very bad things as a regular way of living that no one not knowing would ever think it of them that they know it in them that they themselves inside them with the feeling of themselves inside them made it that the wrong things they were doing were not so bad as when other ones did that wrong thing. They are themselves inside them, they feel themselves inside them, each one of them and so then the things they are doing are personal things, not mercenary, vulgar things like those the other ones doing the same things are doing. This is very common in women, this is very common in men, each man mostly each woman mostly has a feeling of their own being, of being themselves inside them in them and that in itself makes each one doing something less bad in doing that thing than any other one doing that thing. A man painting, a painter exhibiting has such feeling. A painter was saying that exhibitions are so disgusting because just looking one sees that all the pictures are bad and that is disgusting, one's own pictures are hanging there and one looking at them and realising that they are bad things knows by remembering how each one of them happened to come to be not a good one and that then makes it alright for there are reasons that one's own pictures are not good ones while with all the others they are bad ones and that's all there is to them, there are not reasons to explain them to the feeling of any one looking at them and this is a very common way of having a conviction of virtue in them in a wonderfully large number of men and women.

  There are others who build it up in pieces the virtuous being the virtuous feeling in them, slowly they build it up in living, slowly carefully and always they are adding, piece alter piece is being added by them to make sometime pretty completely a whole thing and some of these are very good ones indeed in living and some are not such very good ones, but very many of them are very good ones in living. Some of such of them may have many other things in them that are not such good things in them but these do not affect the good thing of them, the good part of them, the virtuous being in them that these are steadily building up in them by steady adding, sometimes quickly sometimes slowly but always, mostly always, very often safely, completely safely in them. There are so many of them then men and women that have virtuous feeling in them, important being in them from virtuous feeling in them that it is a large undertaking to understand it and realise it and describe it and I am now not any longer beginning the doing this thing.

  There are some who have very much virtuous feeling virtuous being in them, some who have not so much virtuous being virtuous feeling in them, some who have very little, some who have hardly any and some who have not any interest in any such a thing.

  Some have virtuous feeling in them from having in them concrete and generalised virtue always really in them. Some have virtuous feeling in them from having in them concrete and generalised virtue almost always really in them. Some have virtuous feeling in them from having in them concrete and generalised virtue very often really in them. Some have virtuous feeling in them from having in them concrete and generalised virtue sometimes really in them. Some have virtuous feeling in them from having in them concrete and generalised virtue sometime really in them.

  There are lots more ways of having virtuous feeling in one than these that I have been describing. I am keeping them back now from crowding on me, slowly they will come to me and out from me, this has been a description of a few of them and there are lots of them but I have been already describing a good many of them and always I am understanding women and men more and more by listening to them as in repeating it comes out of them the telling by them of how goodness is in them even in those who never are really talking about any such a thing. Always sometime it comes out of every one the way they have virtuous feeling in them and always more and more to me it is interesting.

  It is very perplexing 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. This is perplexing, this is sometimes not at all perplexing, mostly it is perplexing always to the families of them, those knowing always the kind of them, this kind in men and women. Alfred Hersland will soon then be interesting. There will soon be a description of him begun.

  There are many ways of being and of loving and of winning and of losing, and having honor in them, and horror of something, and religion in them and virtuous feeling being believing and thinking in them from the nature of them when this is strong enough in them to make their own in men and women. Sometimes some one to every one is strong enough to make his own or her own living thinking feeling being loving, horror, working and religion and virtuous feeling and this is not then true of that one, this one is one having anticipating suggestion and then being like a resounding board to the suggestion they were anticipating and so giving it forth then so that to themselves then and mostly to every one they are strong to do their own living, to make their own opinion and virtue and working and thinking and loving and religion and this will soon now be some description of such a one. Some then can make their own honor, and virtue and work and thinking and loving and religion. Some can make their own horror, some their own loving, some their own religion, some are weak and can do one thing their own, some are strong enough and all of it is some one else's thinking, feeling, doing, religion, virtue in them, they are strong enough men and women. There are some can just resist and not make their own anything. Some out of their own virtue make a god who sometimes later is a nuisance to them, a terror perhaps to them, a difficult thing to be forgetting. Some are controlled by other's virtue and religion and that scares them, it is a superstition to them and always after it is a scared part of them. Some like religion, some forget it, some are it, some have a prejudice against it. There are many who love themselves enough to not want to lose themselves from living, to not want other people, existence to lose them, to very many women, to very many men this comes to be as a religion in them, this makes religion a real thing to them. Some love themselves so much immortality can have no meaning for them, the younger David Hersland was such a one, there will be a long history of him sometime written. Some love themselves negatively and they like thinking about immortal living. Some love themselves or other ones so forcibly in them that death can have no meaning as an ending, these are then certain of existing, these then are made to
have religion, that is certain, some do not have it then in them, really they are certain that every one is continuing, they may not know it as religion, they mostly all of them sometime know it in them. Some love themselves so completely or some other one that they think they exist when they don't, will exist when they won't, are in communication with them when they certainly are not, some of these do not make it as a religion, they have it as a conviction as a certainty in them, these have a future life feeling in their present living. This is pretty common. Some have fervent loving in them for themselves or some one with very much fear in them and some of such of them have religion in them and very many of such of them have none.

  This is now to be a little a very little description of some having in her or in him the feeling of original creation from anticipated suggestion and the way virtue then is in them, in such of them. Then there will be a beginning of the being in Alfred Hersland after this little description which has not much to do with anything but is to me interesting has been made, as I was just saying.

  Some have very much sensitive being in them, very many have sensitive being as creative activity in them, very many have it as an instrument nature in them, some of them have it so that they can be almost creative by resonating, resoundingly anticipating another one's suggestion before that suggestion comes as a completion and such then are often for the very longest kind of time really puzzling as having in them sensitiveness to the creation of real personality in them as original activity in them and these very often have it in them that they are intelligent and so can reflect and then reflect about the thing they are creating from anticipation of the suggesting of other one's to them, they are quicker, these then, quicker really than chain lightning and sometimes for a very long time these are confusing. Sometimes these then can be understood by one when one realises of them that they are as greatly one thing as any other thing if the proper influence has come into the circle of their living and that never to themselves when they are beginning a new thing did the other thing the last thing they were creating, the last kind of thing they were doing completely express the personality of them to their thinking, such of them are never failing in anything, they are always succeeding, later they are always certain they have not completely expressed the personality in them in the last thing they were doing, they are now completely expressing the personality in them and then later in remembering they know they have not completely expressed the personality in them and always in each kind of thing they are doing they are succeeding, they are never stopping doing the last thing because they are tired of doing that thing, they are beginning a new thing without really leaving the last thing; in their generalised living, slowly every one can come to know it of them they are not really original in inspiration, it comes then that it is change but not an evolution of them everything, there is no generalised conception that forms itself from them in them, they may be fairly successful in living they may not be successful in living, always then they are quicker than chain lightning really in their sensitive being.

  The weakness of the being in them may come to be clear from the virtue feeling in them, from religion in them, from the way they need for that always to have company around them, this is generalised being in them and they need close company around them to support them, they cannot for this do concrete working that gives to every one the illusion that inspiration is inside them. This is pretty clear to my thinking, not completely clear yet and I am now telling it here to a little rid myself of it and to begin again to think and feel about it. Sometime I will have to do much more realising, understanding the sensitive being in men and women, it is a completely necessary thing and I am always working and thinking and feeling and I will not now say any more about this thing, this is enough now and I have been relieving myself enough now of my wisdom.

  Perhaps this description that I have been just making has a little after all to do with something in this writing. This then and other things that have been written have something to do with preparing the understanding of myself then and some others perhaps then for the being in Julia Dehning.

  There must be much alternating all through in this writing of preparing to be describing Alfred Hersland and the living in him and Julia Dehning who came later to be marrying him. These two then will be mostly all of them in this part of this writing and always I am alternating between them and always a little preparing understanding one and a little preparing understanding the other one and so sometime perhaps everything will come to be showing something and that will be then a happy ending of all this beginning.

  Sensitive being is completely interesting. It will sometime be a long book that one when everything is written about sensitive being and kinds of it and the meaning of it in every man and every woman. Sometime it must be done for so only can there be written a history of every one.

  All this describing then of virtuous being, feeling, knowing, thinking, in men and in women makes it right now to begin the complete understanding and description of the living and the being in Alfred Hersland and every one important in his living.

  Alfred Hersland, the kind he is of human beings is to me very clear just now very clear inside me as grown up men and women, I have very many of the kind that are his kind of them now in me, I am mostly now completely filled up with that kind of them, that kind in men and women, with many individual ones of them, with many women of that kind of them with many men of that kind of them, I am just now very completely full up with the kind Alfred Hersland is in being, with men and women very many of them of that kind of them, with many of them, one just like him, that is all of him in my imagining, with some a little more one kind a little more another kind, with many who are of the same kind as he is among men and women but very different from him, I am full up very full up now with a whole large group who are all more or less connected in kind with him, with Alfred Hersland as he is completely now inside him, a complete one, I have then so many men and women in me now who are of his kind in men and women and they are in me now, I am completely full up with them now, completely filled up with them filled up with them as men and women, all full up with that kind of men and women and I must now begin again and slowly live it in them the beginning of them, I am filled up quite entirely filled up quite full up with the kind of them with all the varieties of them of this kind of them as men and women as women and men, I am all completely quite completely full up with this kind of them in men and women and all the kinds of them connected with this kind of them, I am completely now pretty nearly entirely now full up with many men and many women and all of this kind of them the kind of which Alfred Hersland is one, completely filled up with them but only as completely men and women, I must a little now be filled up full with them with these then as beginning as children, I must be completely full with them and I must be full up with them too as children and I am now beginning a little to fill up with them as children, I am filled up full with them as young men, young women, as very young men and very young women, as older men and older women, as growing old men and growing old women, as old men and old women as dying and dead ones, I am then pretty completely entirely filled up full with this kind of them with very many men and women with complete men and complete women with this kind in men and women the kind of which Alfred Hersland is one and of kinds closely connected in character with his kind of them, I am very full then of his kind in men and women, I am very fairly full of a kind of them he will have one of as marrying him, the kind there is in Julia Dehning which is a very different kind from his kind of them, I am fairly full of the Julia Dehning kind of them as children, as completely men and women, I am very completely full then, I am quite completely full of the kind there is of men and women of which Alfred Hersland is one and now I am waiting to be a fuller one, I am waiting to be a completely full one, I am waiting to be full up with that kind of them all there are of that kind of them as children and I am now as I am saying waiting.

  To begin again with Mr. Hissen the grandfather of Al
fred Hersland. This one was as I was saying a man having it in him that he was really all that there was of religion, he was a man as I was saying a man completely being that thing to himself inside him, a man living that thing completely every moment in his living, a man holding them as part of him his wife and children to be a part of him when they were in the house with him, and he was all there was of religion, when they had left him for their own living they were then not any longer in him part of him, he was then again all there was of religion, he was a man then having a connection with such as those I was describing who have it to be completely to themselves that they are completely a good one only those that I have been describing have it in them to have concrete living in them and generalised conviction of themselves besides in them and seeing themselves in the light of the generalisation and the generalisation comes from the conviction of being that is not in concrete existing really in them, in Mr. Hissen then it was a different thing, his generalisation was a complete generalisation from the complete feeling acting being thinking in him, he was completely then all that there was of religion, he was living knowing being thinking feeling believing that he was himself all that there was of religion and he was concretely living every minute in this being and concrete and generalised being was the same being in him and he did not think that when lie would be dead he would be living, dead was dead to him and religion was living to him but not living when he was no longer a live one, he was in himself all that there was of religion, dead is dead, he was very certain, religion was not in him a contradiction of this thing, religion was him, he was all that there was of religion, religion was all that there was of religion, he was it so completely in him that he was not ever judging any one, not himself, not any one, he was himself to himself inside him, he was all there was of religion, he was alive when he was living and was then all there was of religion, he held his children there when they were living in the house with him, when they had left him they were no longer in him of him, he was not then ever judging any of them, when he was alive he was to himself completely living completely religion, when he would be dead he would be a dead one he could not have any fear in him, he was a completely whole one then, there was not in him any contradiction between being a dead one a really dead one and religion, he was in himself all that there was of religion, he lived completely the living of being completely himself all there was of religion, he was so, not ever judging any one not himself not any one not his children, they were him when they were part of him, they were not him when they were not a part of him and that made him a complete thing always in living, generalised and concrete living, feeling, being, knowing, thinking, believing, had in him no complication, he was then the complete thing of being all there was of religion, of being certain that to be a dead one was to be really then a dead one, to have this in him as religion, to be himself completely all there was of religion, to be living concretely every moment every day his religion living concretely and as a generalisation. This then is the being in Mr. Hissen who was the grandfather of Alfred Hersland and this then is one of the kind of them that one must be understanding to understand the being in Alfred Hersland which I am hoping very soon now to be beginning describing. This is one then, I will now describe others of this family of kinds in men and women, for soon now I will describe Alfred Hersland for I am completely always nearer understanding that one and yet there are some difficulties that I am still feeling and I am very full up now with this kind of them the Alfred Hersland kind of them and still I am feeling some difficulties in the completion, they are not yet to me all of them entirely completely yet whole ones inside me, I am waiting and I am not yet certain, I am not yet impatient yet in waiting, I am waiting, I am not now again beginning, I do not feel that I need to be again beginning, I am in the right direction, I am only now just needing to be going, I am now only just waiting, I am going I think very soon to be keeping on going, I have been describing Mr. Hissen again the grandfather of Alfred Hersland, I will now tell a little more of religious desiring in some of this kind of them, some who have fear and idealisation in them, Mr. Hissen had not this in him, dead was dead to him, religion was completely all him in him, he was not judging any one, he had not any fear in him, he died of old age when he came to be a dead one, to be dead was to be dead of that he was very certain, he had not then any fear in him, he had not in him ecstasy or idealisation, he had completion in him, he had all that there was of religion for him in him, when he would be a dead one he would be dead of that he was completely certain, he was then a complete one, concrete and generalised conviction was the same in him, he was the grandfather of Alfred Hersland, he was one of one kind in men and women, I am now pretty settled in my direction, I am still now waiting, I am still now not going on, I am still now waiting and that is what I am now doing.