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

by Gertrude Stein

  There were some whom he knew who were living in another part of Gossols and he sometimes saw them, sometimes he saw them very often. This is now to be a description of them, of all of them. There were two families of them that the Hersland children came to know and each of them lived in a different part of Gossols. They had no connection with each other. The Fishers one of these families then were friends of the woman who lived near the Herslands and did dress-making sometimes for Mrs. Hersland. Sometimes Mary Fisher came to see the second daughter Cora who was not yet come to be a really pretty one. Sometimes Mary Fisher's brother Henry came with her and so the Herslands all of them came to know them and they each one in their way all excepting Mrs. Hersland came to know the Fishers very well. Mr. Hersland came to know them very well later, Martha and Alfred and David Hersland came to know them earlier. They were six of them of the Fisher family, four children and a father and mother. Mr. Fisher had something to do with horses, that was the way he made a living. The Hersland children never came to know him. They sometimes saw him and spoke to him. Henry the second son they came to know very well all of them. Henry went bicycling very often with David Hersland. Mary was the only daughter and all the Hersland family came to know her. Later Mrs. Hersland came to know her a good deal and Martha Hersland always liked her. Mrs. Hersland liked her well enough but never came really to know her. Alfred used to stay in her kitchen talking to her. Jim was the oldest son and brother. The Herslands did not, any of them, ever come to know him. The Fishers were all proud of him, he was a commercial traveler and was apart from them. Slowly it came out about him that he was going to ruin from a taste for liquor. Later he took a cure and was better, none of the Herslands ever saw him, not any of them ever came to know him. Mrs. Fisher was a tall kindly faced kind of woman. She was always good and mostly always in the kitchen. All the Herslands came to know her, Mrs. Hersland never really came to know her. Henry Fisher was a very reliable person, he was very pleasant always to Martha Hersland, he and David Hersland did a great deal of bicycling together. Alfred Hersland was at the Fishers sometimes for an evening. They were not really ever very important in his living.

  Another family with whom the Herslands Martha and Alfred and David, never Mr. and Mrs. Hersland, spent an evening were the Henrys and these were not really important to them. They came to know them quite by accident having sat next to them at a theatre one afternoon and then they went to see them. They went there quite often in the evening one or two or all three of the Herslands then. Mr. and Mrs. Hersland never came to know any of them of the Henry family. There were four children, James Henry a tall thin one who played the violin while the other ones danced in the evening. Henry a pleasant enough sensible enough fellow to be knowing, Rose Henry a little dark one and Carrie Henry who was just one of them. The Herslands would go there and eat dinner with them, Mrs. Henry browned potatoes, pealed, when she roasted her meat the way french people do them, the Herslands always ate very many of them, the forks and knives the Henrys used for eating were worn dawn very thin, later then James Henry played and all of them danced pretty solemnly in a quadrille. This happened quite often in the evening. The Henrys were really not important in the living of any of the Hersland children. Later then they did not see any of them, Mr. Henry later killed himself and every one wondered if he had been crazy when he did this thing. They were not any of them ever important in the living of Martha, Alfred or David Hersland.

  Alfred as I was saying was in Gossols when he was a very young one and when he was a little an older one. Sometimes then later he saw a little sometimes of Olga the sister of the first governess the Herslands had had in their Gossols living staying with them. Sometimes the Wyman family made up to him. This is the way he had all these in him this that I am now beginning describing. This is now beginning to be a history of him, a history of Alfred Hersland of all the being and all the living in him.

  Alfred played the violin some, he played it very well. He had some musical feeling, he had quite a bit of musical understanding, later in his very early Bridgepoint Jiving he was very much interested in playing and in understanding. He made for himself some reputation as an intelligent amateur musician. He came to know then in Bridgepoint in his early living in Bridgepoint a young man who was making music a profession and did some rather nice composing. Later this one gave it up and went into a clothing manufacturing business in which his brother and father needed him, but this is all later history of Alfred Hersland, this all was in his Bridgepoint living, this is now a history of him and a description of the being in him in his Gossols living. He had then in him in his younger living a good deal of musical feeling. All the three of them Martha, Alfred and David in their younger living took lessons to learn to play on something. Alfred was the only one of the three of them who had any really musical feeling. Martha took a little interest once in playing and she did a good deal of practicing just before she left Gossols for her college education. David was interested in understanding but he never did any practicing, he was interested again later and always everything was interesting to him sometime and later there will be a very long history of everything and of him written.

  Alfred had really some musical feeling in him. Once in his later Gossols living he had a really interesting teacher. This was a man named Arragon. He was a very interesting man, he interested Alfred very much then when he was teaching him. Alfred never wanted to be a musician as a way of living never really at any time in him but music and understanding musical feeling was for a little while all the feeling in him, while Arragon was near him. Later there will be some little history written of this man, not very much but a little and that will come in the later Gossols living in Alfred Hersland.

  This has been now a little description of the living in Alfred Hersland and now there will be more description of him, of the being in him and the living in him.

  Alfred Hersland was neither popular nor very unpopular with those that knew him. He was not pleasant nor unpleasant to any one, he did everything he did with those he was knowing then, he really did with them mostly everything they were doing. He was not at any time left out by them. He always all his Gossols living did everything he was doing with those he was near then in living, and he always then did with them everything that they were doing. He was never then left out by them. To them his future living was not important in him to cut him off at all from them. He did everything he was doing then with them, he did mostly everything they were doing with them. He was himself inside him, later as I was saying he had some feeling in him that he never had been cut off from rich American living, later then this came to be in him, he still then did everything he did with those he was knowing in Gossols where he was living, not altogether though then, he was beginning knowing some other women and some men, he saw something then of Ida Heard the school teacher and so did his music teacher Arragon this is all to be written later.

  Alfred Hersland then was himself inside him, he was perhaps not a very complete one, as I was saying some, a good many just now are pieces to me, they are themselves inside them. Alfred Hersland is one of such of them. He was certainly himself inside him, perhaps he was not such a very complete one, this is a little my feeling of him just now and I have mentioned it again. He was himself inside him, he was of the engulfing resisting kind of them in men and women, he was perhaps not a very complete one, he was to mostly every one not very pleasant not very unpleasant, he was not popular or unpopular with men or with women. This is now to be some description of the being in him.

  He was some one to himself inside him that is certain, this is now to be a long description of the being in him. There will then be more description of his Gossols living.

  Now there will be description of the being in him and then more history of his Gossols living.

  Some know more or less of men and women what the being in them are going to be making them do from minute to minute in their living, some have not at all any such knowledge in them of men and women. Some have a
little such knowledge in them about some one when they have known that one completely entirely from the top to the bottom all through them for a good deal of the living in them. Some even then are very apt to be believing that any minute that one will go much farther in doing something than that one really ever will be doing, much less far in doing something than that one is really ever going. This is quite common. There are a very great many who are very certain that some one will be doing something and these then have it in them to be easily quickly very completely forgetting all the times they are mistaken. But then it certainly is certain that some have more feeling for what others are going to be doing from minute to minute in their living than others have it in them. Some have an exaggerated notion of the way they do not have it in them. But some and I mention it for I am one of such of them have practiced very often in thinking to be planning the action of some one they are knowing very well in living and always then though often they know the general direction mostly always they think something is going to be happening much sooner than it does really happen or much later than it does really happen or much more strongly than that one is going to do that thing or much more weakly than that one is going to be doing that thing and very often then too such a one is wrong about the kind of action that some one they are knowing very well is going to be doing. I am very busy mentioning this thing because I have always been very interested in seeing how very wrong I can be when I am telling about any one how they are going to be living from day to day in their living. And yet more and more in my living I come to be more understanding of the complete meaning of the being in each one I am knowing, I get to be more able more and more to know of them what will be the quality of living of working in them what on the whole will be the quality of succeeding and failing in them and always then I want to be mistaken I want to make mistakes so that I can see something in them which makes of that one a more complete one, always then I want to be more certain of all the variations that makes some one so very much like some one really different from that one. Always then more and more I want to be feeling completely feeling the complete being, all the being in each one I am ever knowing and feeling in them the kind and quality and quantity of work and living and loving in them. I can never have really much feeling of what specifically they will be doing from moment to moment in their living I have not any dramatic imagination for action in them, I only can know about action in them from knowing action they have been doing any of them, I mention this so that every one can be certain I do not know this about any one any men or women, I tell about the living in them from the living they have had in them I cannot ever construct action for them to be doing, I have certainly constructive imagination for being in them, sometimes with very little watching I have pretty complete realisation of pretty nearly all the being in them. I just felt like mentioning this thing and so I have just mentioned it here so that every one can be certain that I have not any dramatic constructive imagination. I am always more and more and that is certain realising under standing constructing with complete imagination the complete being each one of men and women. The actual things each one are doing I only know from knowing the actual detail in the actual living of each actual one I am ever knowing. I certainly more and more am always more and more realising the being in each one I am seeing. I am always more and more realising kinds in men and women, the being in each one of each kind of them. I have mentioned this because I have been feeling for some time like mentioning this thing, sometime I will make more of this and will illustrate it then. This will come to be done very much later in my living. Of that I am almost certain.

  Now there will be some description of the being in Alfred Hersland and then after that has been a little written there will be written more history of his Gossols living and more description of those with whom lie was then in his daily living. There will then be written a description of him in his Bridgepoint living and of his later marrying Julia Dehning and of every one whom he knew just then and then there will be more history written and there will be more and on and on then until somewhere nearly to the end of him. And then sometime later there will be written the ending of him and of his generation in the Hersland living.

  This then is now to be a little description of the being that was him, as I was saying being is interesting to me and I have some understanding of being in men and women. As I was saying the being in Alfred Hersland is more or less like a piece of a whole one but always he had his own being in him, in a way he was himself inside him and this is now a little description of my feeling about being in him, about being in a good many men and women. Almost every one sometime is a piece of one not a whole one, almost every one sometime is a whole one. This is true of many men and women to me of mostly every one. I will now try to understand my meaning in this feeling.

  To be using a new word in my writing is to me a very difficult thing. Every word I am ever using in writing has for me very existing being. Using a word I have not yet been using in my writing is to me very difficult and a peculiar feeling. Sometimes I am using a new one, sometimes I feel new meanings in an old one, sometimes I like one I am very fond of that one one that has many meanings many ways of being used to make different meanings to every one. Sometimes I like it, almost always I like it when I am feeling many ways of using one word in writing. Sometimes I like it that different ways of emphasising can make very different meanings in a phrase or sentence I have made and am rereading. Always in writing it, it is in me only one thing, a little I like it sometimes that there can be very different ways of reading the thing I have been writing with only one feeling of a meaning. This is a pleasant thing, sometimes I am very well pleased with this thing, very often then I am liking a word that can have many ways of feeling in it, it is really a very difficult thing to me to be using a word I have not yet been using in writing. I may know very well the meaning of a word and yet it has not for me completely weight and form and really existing being. There are only a few words and with these mostly always I am writing that have for me completely entirely existing being, in talking I use many more of them of words I am not living but talking is another thing, in talking one can be saying mostly anything, often then I am using many words I never could be using in writing. In writing a word must be for me really an existing thing, it has a place for me as living, this is the way I feel about me writing. I have been mentioning this thing for I am just now feeling a learning in me for some words I have just been beginning using in my writing. Now I am going on with a description of being, of being in pieces and as whole ones to my feeling, of being in Alfred Hersland as I was saying.

  I will not go on about pieces and whole ones in everybody's being. Each one mostly sometimes is a whole one to me. Very often later then they are pieces to me some that have been sometimes completely whole ones to me. That happens then to me quite often, that happens to me again and again. Sometimes some one I have been feeling as a completely whole one from the loving being in that one comes then to me all of a sudden to be loving loving more than loving some one something and that one then is a piece of one to me, not any longer the whole one I was feeling. Then I begin again very often and make of this one a new whole one beginning again with this piece and remembering everything I ever knew of this one. One then has been to me a whole one having complete loving being, such a one then comes to have to me loving loving more than loving anything and that realisation of that one makes that one to me then not a whole one. This may come to me of some one, of any one, of all who are whole ones to me, I may have in me then some realisation of them and that realisation makes them not a whole one. Every one is not a whole one, now I am waiting a little for an inspiration about this thing to explain completely my feeling. I will now soon be telling my feeling about men and women, about whole being in them, about them as a piece of living each one about them always all each one having their own being in them, always then each one of them each one who ever was or is or will be living. Then there will be a complete descript
ion of being in Alfred Hersland for my realisation.

  Alfred Hersland was of a kind in men and women as I was saying. He was the eldest son but not the eldest child as I was saying, and that had some effect on him as I was saying. I am writing everything as I am learning anything. I am writing everything as I am learning anything, as I am feeling anything in any one as being, as lam having a realisation of any one, I am saying everything then as I am full up then with a thing, with anything of any one. I am certain that some are sometime whole ones to me, that some are sometimes a piece of their kind of them in me, always I am certain each one is existing, they are themselves inside them, sometime mostly every one is a whole one to my feeling, very often before then very often after then that one is not a whole one in my feeling; that one is a piece of the kind of being that is the being they are of in being. This comes then very often to be in my feeling and just now I am quite a little far from certain that each one is a whole one and always I am certain somehow always each one is existing inside them and that in a way sometimes gives to me a very unsatisfactory way of feeling being for not any one then is completely a whole one to my feeling mostly not any one and yet they are not each one parts of a being to my feeling each one then is existing inside in them and I am then not very well satisfied with my feeling all being. I am having that kind of feeling a good deal when several of them that have been completely whole ones to my feeling are not any longer such completely whole ones, as I was saying this can happen in them from realising that they are not original but anticipatorily suggestible some one that was to me as one completely self-suggested in living, or it can come from some one having been a completely loving being and then this one is not really loving the one they were completely loving and loving is not the complete being in them. Some come to be pieces of themselves as a whole one from there being anger in them, failure, stupid being that makes a dead piece in them, uncertain being, weakness in them sometimes makes of them a piece sometimes of their whole one and some and a little in a way Alfred Hersland was such a one never come to be a whole one to me, he always has been a piece of himself as a whole being and now I begin again.