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

by Gertrude Stein

  Julia Hersland might later have come to marry William Beckling but William came then to be quite a sick man and he had then certainly to take care of himself in living and he would not then marry any woman. I will tell more about him. He was in a way one in a way acting as if he were almost certain that some one should be a good one for living. This is all now for just beginning a description of living in him.

  Mostly all of these whom Julia knew then met the others she knew then but very many did not like some of the others they met then. Some did like very much some of those they met then. Some did not come to know any of the others they met then. Some did come to know some of the others they met then. As I was saying Julia had in a way not come to have any friends in her personal living in her younger living. This is quite common. This is quite astonishing to those who have had friends personal to them to their living but it is certainly very common, quite extraordinarily common that young women and younger ones and young men and younger ones have not had any one who was personally a companion to them. As I am saying this is really extraordinarily common. It is also very uncommon as I am saying and very many are knowing.

  Julia Dehning then had in a way in her younger living not had really any one personally a companion to her then, she was herself inside her and giving a stamp then decidedly to herself to every one of herself on Dehning living as being in her being living. She was then being in Dehning family living, that is now certain.

  Now then to begin again the long list of those she came to know as Mrs. Alfred Hersland, some of them she knew earlier, certainly William Beckling, a very little Miriam Cranach, quite well in Dehning family living Charles Kohler, she had heard of Adolph Herman and as for the rest perhaps she had met them, knew of some one knowing them, perhaps not, that really is not an important thing to any one excepting to me who am interested in knowing everything every little thing. I will then begin remembering these things. Julia Hersland too knew David Hersland, she in a way knew some that knew him, he in a way knew every one she knew then, she in a way knew about some of those Alfred Hersland was knowing then. She did not later know anything of those Alfred Hersland was knowing.

  Really almost all her living she knew William Beckling, she did not come to marry him, that was because he became a sick man and was certain then that it was not right for him to marry any woman. She knew Theodore Summers a few years, she always sometime heard something about him, later when she did not any longer often see him. It was a little then an important thing in her living as part of really learning anything, as part of being one certainly and she was certainly such a one as part of being in courageous being one going on certainly going on being living.

  She came to know the Cranachs after she was a married one. They had a little known William Beckling, they did not care about him, they had known David Hersland, they liked knowing him. Julia afterwards to the end of her living knew them really for her daily living. There will be a history written a short one of her and each one of them. Helen Cooke knew Julia after she was Mrs. Hersland. Helen knew Mrs. Cranach, she knew William Beckling, she knew David Hersland, she really did not interest herself really to know any of them then. She later came to know David Hersland as a thing interesting to her for the living being in her, she always all her living knew Julia Hersland, she did not find that at all interesting. Rachel Sherman married Adolph Herman, Adolph Herman knew William Beckling, Rachel Sherman knew Helen Cooke very well then and she met William Beckling and Mrs. Alfred Hersland and then Adolph Herman and then she married him. I will tell about that thing. The Hermans in a way always went on knowing and later learning anything with Mrs. Hersland. That was interesting. I will tell about this thing. Charles Kohler was one in a way in Dehning family living, later they were not certain that in a way he had been in Dehning family living, for some time then not anybody in Dehning family living saw him, Julia sometimes saw him then, she never was certain whether he had been in his feeling ever in Dehning family living. He was not in any way to any one in Dehning family living or to any one knowing Julia Hersland an important one. Linder Herne was a man certainly teaching something. Julia had heard of him, she liked it that all the rest of his living she could know him.

  Arthur Keller as I said she came to know as he came to be perhaps going to be a brother-in-law. I will tell about him later in the history of David Hersland. Then there was Hilda who married Ernest Brakes and she might have married George Dehning. I will tell a little about her now and more about her later, she never completely wanted to know Julia Hersland and yet she liked it very well that she did know Julia Hersland. She married Ernest Brakes and she sometimes met the Dehnings later when she went out somewhere. Then there were other ones as I said in telling about those Julia was knowing, I will begin again telling about every one Julia Hersland was knowing.

  There certainly are kinds in men and women. There certainly are things hurting each one living. The things hurting each one hurt them in the way their kind of them, their kind in men and women are hurt by anything. Sometimes it is astonishing to some one that they are effected by something in a way and that is the way their kind of them in men and women are certain to be affected by that thing and they did not know of which kind they were and that they would be effected the way their kind in men and women is always being effected by something and so they found it completely astonishing to know it of themselves that they were effected that way by that thing. Some know quite certainly by the middle of their middle living how they are going to be effected by each thing. Very many are never really certain about this thing. Quite a number come to be quite certain about this thing. Some can be certain about other ones about this thing. Some are quite certain but are not really knowing this thing, some are not certain and are not really knowing this thing.

  Each kind then in men and women have it to have that all of them are hurt in the same way by something that can hurt them. This is just now in me by my feeling. Some of each kind of them have it to be much less hurt than others of their kind of them by anything. Some of each kind of them can be almost quite completely hurt by something hurting them. Each kind of them in men and women have it in them to have their own way of having frightened feeling in them from something really scaring them. Some of each kind in men and women are not very much frightened by anything scaring them. Some are very much scared by something frightening them. Some easily have their way of being frightened in them, some need very much frightening to have their way of being frightened, the way of being frightened of their kind of them come out of them.

  I am beginning now telling more of Miriam Cranach who was of a kind of them of whom many have it to have religion in them so that they are in living really ones having really inside them and outside of them distinction from this thing. Some of such of them are fairly happy ones in living but very many of such of them are happy really only by religion. These are of the resisting kind in men and women, that is to say they are of the dependent independent kind. They have it in them not to be really dependent, not to be really independent. They have completely the sensitiveness of resisting being but they are not sensitive to anything that is not to their feeling connected with the relation of themselves of some one to the universal feeling. They have not at all engulfing being although some of them almost suggest such a thing, they have not at all resisting although some of them very much suggest such a thing, they seem to be resisting because they are not responding to anything that is to them whatever meaning that word many have for them not god-given. They seem some of them to be engulfing because they are completely sensitive to that thing. These have it very often that they have not any power of expressing themselves about anything that does not completely touch them. Many of these if it were not for the looks of them would seem from their talking or their writing generally to be quite stupid ones.

  Miriam was such a one. I will not tell very much just now about her because sometime later when I tell more about men and women I will tell about Miss Ortenried who married O
laf Lawson. I will then tell all I know then about this kind in men and women, how they have religion in them, how they can be hurt by something, how they can be frightened when something has scared them.

  I told something about Miriam Cranach knowing Julia Dehning Hersland. I have already told something about this thing.

  Always something is happening and one is then feeling something and sometimes one is then one knowing how some other one felt when something was happening. Some one can understand then always sometime how some other one was feeling sometime about something.

  William Bedding was one who was almost for him completely, brilliantly succeeding in living, and then he came to be a sick one and he was certain then that it would not be right for him to marry a woman.

  Beckling then was almost completely brilliantly succeeding in living as I was saying. He did not begin early in his living to be so brilliantly succeeding, but about the middle of his middle living he was certainly almost quite brilliantly succeeding.

  Almost all these I have been saying who were knowing Julia Hersland were succeeding pretty well in living. Ernest Brakes who married Hilda Breslau who might have come to marry George Dehning was never succeeding any too well in living. They were happy ones enough in being living Brakes and his wife Hilda. Henry Sherman and his wife Rachel were in a way successful in living quite successful in living, in a way quite happy in living, happy enough in living, they were to very many knowing them and to themselves all their living very happy quite successful ones in being living. They were loving each other that is certain and were pleasant to each other completely in being husband and wife living together and going about together. They both had much intention, much aspiration, much conviction, much sensitiveness in living, they did not have very much that hurt them but some things did hurt them, perhaps some things frightened them that is not certain. They did not have religion but they each had complete devotion to being certain that each one was to be one really and truly working, was one really and truly working. These came to know Julia Hersland always more in their living and in her living. They came to be almost always more or less in each others daily living. I can not describe them more because I do not know what to be certain about in thinking about them. Sometime I will be more certain and then I will begin again about them.

  I will tell more now about Julia Hersland and each one she came to know in living and how she came to know them and I will tell more and more about all the living ever being in her.

  I could go on and on, I am so certain that it would be a very important thing if some other going on being living, some other ones going on being in living could be knowing really how to be distinguishing the resisting from the attacking kind in men and women, could be understanding the way having it in them to have religion in them is in them of the resisting kind of them, is in them of the attacking kind of them. I am so certain that I am knowing a very great deal about being being in men and in women that it certainly does seem as if something would be missing if not any one could be coming to know from me all of that everything. And now I am sad with this thing for certainly I will be going on with all this thing and certainly then not any one will be rightly certain about some one which kind of being that one has in them resisting or attacking and how religion is in that one. But then I am remembering that every one being ever in living is pretty well used to this thing that some one has it to have knowing realising something and not any one else even later has that thing and so then I will go on writing, and not for myself and not for any other one but because it is a thing I certainly can be earnestly doing with sometimes excited feeling and sometimes happy feeling and sometimes longing feeling and sometimes almost indifferent feeling and always with a little dubious feeling. I could though be so wise and I am so wise and it would be so nice for me to be certain that from me some other one could be a wise one a little less wise than I am who am the original wise one. I could then be so pleased with this thing with being certain that with me there would be an increasing of wise realisation, and then I am remembering it is like when I was a younger one I was for years so sorry about things important in something being lost and some one being a dead one by an accident when he was a young one and then later I was certain I would not be using that thing that was lost and would not be reading something if it had been written and if I did not need that thing, very likely not any one would be really needing that thing, and whatever any one is having is plenty good enough unless they want some other thing and perhaps they will find that other thing, and anyhow nobody can be a wise one in the way I am just now a wise one, so I will go on and go on and if anybody comes to be like me a wise one why then there will have come to be another wise one. I am almost certain I am completely a wise one. I will not tell any more now about this thing. I will tell now some more about religion and about attacking and about resisting being and I will tell some more now about everything and perhaps sometime I will be sad again about not any one ever having the understanding of being in men and women that I am having.

  Julia Dehning came to know each of them, some men and some women, and so for now to finish them and her up. Sometime and it will be in the history of David Hersland that it will be done I will be telling more about each one coming to be sometime a completely dead one. I like it very much that each one all their living have it that they are in some way being living ones. Very often to very many they are very faintly repeating to themselves to any one that they are being living ones then when they are living. Some are not when they are dead ones letting any one having known them be really certain that they are then dead ones. Always then I am certain that sometime I will be telling very much more about every one being in their living living ones and being sometime then really a dead one, dead ones. Being living and then being a dead one, I am certain that I will always be telling more and more about these things to every one. Being a very happy one makes it that I can tell each one sometime about this thing about being a living one and about being sometime then a dead one. I like very much being a happy one, a really widely certainly happy one. I like very much being a very happy one. I can tell to myself too and to every one that each one in the way it is in him is being in his living and each one is sometime then a dead one. I say that I will certainly tell more and more about this to every one. I will certainly always be telling about every one being in being living and every one being sometime a dead one.

  Julia Hersland was being in living and certainly sometime she came to be a dead one. Julia Hersland certainly was being in living and she certainly sometime came to be a dead one. Julia was as I was saying one not failing, in a way not succeeding in living. Julia in a way certainly was quite an excited one in being one being in living. Julia certainly was one keeping on being in living all her living and then she was a dead one. Julia was in a way in living not a happy one, not an unhappy one, in a way quite a happy one. Julia was certainly one in a way not having been one feeling in living. She was one in a way succeeding in living. She came to know quite a number of men and women and quite a number of men and women came to know her and she was one having certainly it in her to be one being going on being in living.

  She came to know a good many men and women in living and a good many men and women came to know her and they, mostly all of them, were succeeding in living and in a way she was one having been succeeding in being in living. She was of Dehning family living as I was saying. She was not of Dehning family living. She went on living being in living as I was saying. She came sometime to be a dead one. Many others had come by then to be dead ones. Some had not yet then come to be dead ones. There are very many always living that is certain. There are very many always living. There were then once very many living. Julia Hersland was one being going on in living. She came sometime to be a dead one. Julia knew some then when she was being living and they were then being living, and they knew her then some.

  Julia came to know some. She came to know each one of them some sometime in her living. Julia came
to know them those I have been mentioning each one of them some sometime in her living. Julia came to know them each one of them sometime in her living. I was just telling some one yesterday evening that some one has it not to have in them the poignancy of experience that that one thought that other one had in living. That one had concentration in expressing experiencing, that one had not concentration in experiencing. Having concentration in experiencing is common but then again it is not so very common. There was one that I was seeing yesterday evening and this one was of the slow resisting and engulfing kind in men and women and this one was quite solemn and this one was not such a solid one in being a slow resisting engulfing one as this one was in expression and so this one was solemn. This one could really be thinking about some one, this one had imagination, this one had sensitiveness for coming to be realising ways of doing something, this one had not sensitiveness for realising the feeling of something having being really existing, this one had the feeling of having feeling of being really existing, this one then had slow solemn expression. I was telling some one yesterday evening, no I do not think I was telling any one this thing yesterday evening. I would have been telling some one yesterday evening if I had not in a way not been wanting to tell that one this thing, that each one could be finding another one interesting if each one felt another one being in act of feeling the way that one really is feeling being living. I cannot come to be more certain ever of anything than I am of how very interesting it is to me in my being one being living to be certain of the feeling there is being in each one and how that feeling comes out of each one as expression. The one I was going to be telling this thing to last evening is one having it that he is sympathetically realising this about each one who has been expressing himself in something written or painted or winning in fighting or governing, or thinking or discovering, this one cannot be rightly certain although this one is very often telling about this thing and this one is very often quite certain what the being is in any one as experiencing when the expression is not a formulated one. Now I can learn it by loving repeating, loving repeating is in me and so to me every one is having as it were coming out of them formulated expression. Loving repeating in me makes of me then one understanding being in men and women, and the relation of expression coming out of each one to the being making them of them. So then any one can know that being one loving hearing seeing feeling repeating has made of me a very wise one.