Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein

by Gertrude Stein

  Sensitiveness to something, understanding anything, feeling anything, that is very interesting to understand in each one. How much, when and where and how and when not and where not and how not they are feeling, thinking, understanding. To begin again then with feeling anything.

  Mostly every one is a brute in her way or his way to some one, mostly every one has some kind of sensitiveness in them.

  Mostly every one can have some kind of feeling in them, very many men and very many women can have some understanding in them of some kind of thing by the kind of being sensitive to some kind of impression that they have in them.

  Some kinds of men and women have a way of having sensation from some things and other men and women have it in them to be able to be impressionable to other kinds of things. Some men and some women have very much of sensitive being in them for the kind of thing they can be feeling, they can then be very loving, or very trembly from the abundant delicate fear in them, or very attacking from the intensity of the feeling in them, or very mystic in their absorption of feeling which is then all of them. There are some men and women having in them very much weakness as the bottom in them and watery anxious feeling, and sometimes nervous anxious feeling then in them and sometimes stubborn feeling then in them. There are some who have vague or vacant being as the bottom in them and it is very hard to know with such ones of them what feeling they have ever in them and there are some with almost intermittent being in them and it is very hard to tell with such of them what kind of thing gives to them a feeling, what kind of feeling they ever have really in them. As I was saying mostly every one sometimes feels something, some one, is understanding something, some one, has some kind of sensitiveness in them to something, to some one, mostly every one.

  As I was saying some men and some women have very much of sensitive being in them for something that can give to them real feeling. They can then, some of these of them, when they are filled full then of such feeling, they can then be completely loving, completely believing, they can then have a trembling awed being in them, they can have then abundant trembly feeling in them, they can then be so full up then with the feeling in them that they are a full thing and action has no place then in them, they are completely then a feeling, there are then men and women, there are then women and men who have then this finely sensitive completed feeling that is sometime all them and perhaps Cora Dounor was one of such of them. Perhaps she was one of them and was such a one in loving Phillip Redfern. Perhaps that was the whole being she had in her then.

  Each one as I am saying has it in them to feel more or less, sometime, something, almost certainly each one sometime has some capacity for more or less feeling something. Some have in them always and very little feeling, some have some feeling and much nervous being always in them, some have as a bottom to them very much weakness and eagerness together then and they have then such of them some sensitiveness in them to things coming to them but often after they are then full up with nervous vibrations and then nothing can really touch them and then they can have in them nervous vibratory movement in them, anxious feeling in them and sometimes stubborn feeling then in them and then nothing can touch them and they are all this being then this nervous vibratory quivering and perhaps Mrs. Redfern was such a one Mrs. Redfern who had been Martha Hersland and was married now to Phillip Redfern and had come to Farnham and had there seen Phillip Redfern come to know Miss Dounor and had been then warned to take care of him by the dean of Farnham Miss Charles. She never knew then, Mrs. Redfern never knew then that she would not ever again have him, have Redfern again. This never could come to be real knowledge in her. She was always then and later always working at something to have him again and that was there always in her to the end of him and of her. There will be a little more description of her written in the history of the ending of the living in her father, in the history of the later living of her brother Alfred Hersland who now just when her trouble was commencing was just then marrying Julia Dehning, in the history of her brother David Hersland her younger brother. More description of her will be part of the history of the ending of the existing of the Hersland family. There will be very much history of this ending of all of them of the Hersland family written later.

  The dean Miss Charles was very different from either Miss Dounor or Mrs. Redfern. She had it in her to have her own way of feeling things touching her, mostly there was in her less reactive than self-directive action in her than there was in the two women who were just then concerning her, Miss Dounor and Mrs. Redfern.

  It is hard to know it of any one whether they are enjoying anything, whether they are knowing they are giving pain to some one, whether they were planning that thing. It is hard to know such things in any one when they are telling when they are not telling to any one what they know inside them. It is hard telling it of any one whether they are enjoying a thing, whether they know that they are hurting some one, whether they have been planning the acting they have been doing. It is hard telling it of any one whether they are enjoying anything, whether they know that they are hurting any one, whether they have been planning the acting they are doing. It is very hard then to know anything of the being in any one, it is hard then to know the being in many men and in many women, it is hard then to know the being and the feeling in any man or in any woman. It is hard to know it if they tell you all they know of it. It is hard to know it if they do not tell you what they know of it in it. Miss Cora Dounor then could do some planning, could do some hurting with it, that is certain. This is perhaps surprising to some, reading. To begin then with her feeling and her being and her acting.

  As I am saying she had it in her to be compounded of beautiful sensitive being, of being able to be in a state of being completely possessed by a wonderful feeling of loving and that was then the whole of the being that was being then in her and then it came to be in her that she could be hurting first Miss Charles and then Mrs. Redfern, then Miss Charles and Mrs. Redfern by planning. This is then the being in her this that I am now with very much complication slowly realising, not yet completely realising, not yet completely ready to be completely describing, beginning now to be describing. The dean Miss Charles was a very different person, she was of the dependent independent kind of them. To understand the being in her there must be now a little realisation of the way beginning is in very many persons having in them a nature that is self growing and a nature that is reacting to stimulation and that have it in them to have these two natures acting in not very great harmony inside them. Mrs. Redfern as I was saying in a long description that has been already written was a very different kind of person from Miss Dounor and Miss Charles. These are then the three of them that were struggling and each of them had in them their own ways of being brutal, hurting some one, had each of them their own way of being sensitive to things and people near them.

  Sometimes I am almost despairing. Yes it is very hard, almost impossible I am feeling now in my despairing feeling to have completely a realising of the being in any one, when they are telling it when they are not telling it, it is so very very hard to know it completely in one the being in one. I know the being in Miss Dounor that I am beginning describing, I know the being in Miss Charles that I am soon going to be beginning describing, I know the being in Mrs. Redfern, I have been describing the being in that one. I know the being in each one of these three of them and I am almost despairing for I am doubting if I am knowing it poignantly enough to be really knowing it, to be really knowing the being in any one of the three of them. Always now I am despairing. It is a very melancholy feeling I have in me now I am despairing about really knowing the complete being of any one of each one of these three of them Miss Dounor and Miss Charles and Mrs. Redfern.

  Miss Dounor as I was saying was to Redfern the most complete thing of gentleness and intelligence he could think of ever seeing in anybody who was living, Miss Dounor had it to have in her the complete thing of gentleness, of beauty in sensitiveness, in completeness of intelligent sensi
tiveness in completely loving. She was the complete thing then of gentleness and sensitiveness and intelligence and she had it as a complete thing gentleness and sensitiveness and intelligence in completely loving. It was in her complete in loving, complete in creative loving, it was then completed being, it was then completely in her completely loving Phillip Redfern. And always to the ending of his living in all the other loving and other troubling and the other enjoying of men and women in him he was faithful to the thing she had been, was and would be to him the completed incarnation of gentleness and sensitiveness and intelligence, gentle intelligence and intelligent sensitiveness and all to the point of completely creative loving that was to him the supreme thing in all living. Miss Dounor was then completely what Redfern found her to him, she was of them of the independent dependent kind of them who have sensitive being to the point of creative being, of attacking, of creative loving, creative feeling, of sometimes creative thinking and writing. She was then such a one and completely then this one and she had in her completely sensitive being to the point of attacking. She could have in her a planning of attacking and this came to be in her from the completeness of sensitive creative loving that she had then in her then when she was knowing Phillip Redfern.

  Perhaps she was not of this kind of them. Perhaps she was at the bottom, of the resisting kind of them. I think she was of the resisting kind of them and so she needed to own the one she needed for loving, so she could do resisting to planning making an attacking. I am almost despairing, yes a little I am realising the being in Miss Dounor and in Miss Charles and Mrs. Redfern, but I am really almost despairing, I have really in me a very very melancholy feeling, a very melancholy being, I am really then despairing.

  Miss Charles was of the kind of men and women that I speak of and have spoken of as the dependent independent kind of them. I will now tell a little about what I mean by self growing activity in such of them and reactive activity in such of them. As I was saying a long time back when I was describing the dependent independent kind of them, reaction is not poignant in them unless it enters into them the stimulation is lost in them and so sets it, the mass, in motion, it is not as in the other kind of them who have it to have a reactive emotion to be as poignant as a sensation as is the case in the independent dependent kind of them. Miss Charles then as I was saying was of the kind of them where reaction to have meaning must be a slow thing, but she had quick reactions as mostly all of them of this kind of them have them and those were her mostly attacking being as is very common in those having in them dependent independent being.

  It is so very confusing that I am beginning to have in me despairing melancholy feeling. Mrs. Redfern as I was saying was of the independent dependent kind of them and being in her was never really attacking, it was mostly never active into forward movement it was incessantly in action as being in a state of most continual nervous agitation. They were then very different in their being the three of them Miss Dounor and Miss Charles and Mrs. Redfern and they had each one of them their own way of hurting the other ones in their then living, of having in them sensitiveness to something.

  It is hard to know it of any one whether they are enjoying anything, whether they are feeling something, whether they are knowing they are giving pain to some one, whether they were planning that thing. It is a very difficult thing to know such things in any one any one is knowing, very difficult even when they are telling that one all the feeling they have in them, a very difficult thing when they are not telling anything. It is a very difficult thing to tell it of any one whether they are enjoying a thing, whether they know that they are hurting some one, whether they have been planning the acting they have been doing. It is a very difficult thing to know anything of the being in any one, it is a very difficult thing to know the being in any one if they tell you all that they themselves know of it as they live it, if they themselves tell you nothing at all about it. It is a very difficult thing to know the being in any one. It is a very difficult thing to know whether any one is feeling a thing, enjoying a thing, knowing that they are hurting some one, planning that thing, planning anything they are doing in their living. It is a difficult thing to know the being in any one if that one tells to any one completely all that that one has in them of telling, it is a very difficult thing to know the being in any one if they are not telling any one anything that they can have as telling in them. It is a very difficult thing to know it of any one the being in them, it is a very difficult thing to tell it of any one what they are feeling, whether they are enjoying, whether they are knowing that they are hurting some one, whether they had been planning doing that thing. It is a very difficult thing to know these things in anyone, it is a difficult thing if that one is telling everything they can be telling, if that one is telling nothing. It is certainly a difficult thing to know it of any one whether they have in them a kind of feeling, whether they have in them at some time any realisation that they are hurting some one, whether they had planned doing that thing.

  Miss Dounor had come to live with Miss Charles, they had come to know each other in the way that it was natural for each one of them to know the other one of them. The two of them then had come to know Mrs. Redfern. They both had come then each in their way to know her and to feel her and to have an opinion of her.

  Miss Dounor had this being in her. She could have some planning in her, this came from the completeness of pride in her. This now comes to be clearer, that she had as completely pride in her as sensitiveness and intelligent gentleness inside her. She had in her pride as sensitive, as intelligent, as complete as the loving being in her when she was loving Redfern. She had in her pride as sensitive, as intelligent, as complete as the being ever in her. She had always had in her a pride as complete, as intelligent, as sensitive as the complete being of her. She had in her a pride as intelligent, as sensitive as complete as the being in her. This made it that she had planning in her, this made attacking sometimes in her. This never made any action in her toward a lover, this gave to her a power of planning and this was in her and she could be wonderfully punishing some around her. This could be turned into melodrama if the intelligence in her had not been so gentle and so fine in her, this in many who are like her is a melodrama. In her it made her able to do some planning against some to punish them not for interfering but for existing and so claiming something that entirely belonged to her. What was in Redfern to him himself a weakness in him was to her a heroic thing to be defending. Pride was in her then as delicate, as gentle, as intelligent as sensitive as complete as the being in her. This is now more description of her. This is now some description of the way she could be hurting another, how she could be feeling another, how she could have planning in her, how she did have planning in her. This is now more description of her and the being in her. I am now a little understanding the whole of her, I have in me still now a little melancholy feeling.

  Miss Charles was of the dependent independent kind of them as I was saying.

  Everybody is perfectly right. Everybody has their own being in them. Some say it of themselves in their living, I am as I am and I know I will never be changing. Mostly every one is perfectly right in living. That is a very pleasant feeling to be having about every one in the living of every one. Mostly not very many have that pleasant feeling that everybody is as they are and they will not be very much changing in them and everybody is right in their living. It is a very pleasant feeling, knowing every one is as they are and everybody is right in their living. Miss Dounor was as she was and she was not ever changing, Miss Charles was as she was and was not ever changing. Mrs. Redfern was as she was and always she wanted to be changing and always she was trying.

  Miss Dounor as I was saying was as she was all her living and was not really ever changing and she was very right in her living and she was very complete in her being and her pride was as complete in her as her being and so she could be planning her conviction of how far Mrs. Redfern should not go in presumption, how far Miss Charles should
not go in her interfering, how completely Phillip Redfern was a saint in living and in her devotion and she could carry out all this in its completion. Mrs. Redfern had no understanding in desiring. Phillip Redfern always should give her always would give her always would give to every one anything she, anything they were ever asking. This was the being in him. Asking was not presumption in Mrs. Redfern, desiring was presumption and Miss Dounor could then have in her a planning or perfect attacking. Always Mrs. Redfern should have anything she could ever ask of anyone, that was a very certain thing. Always Mrs. Redfern should have, would have from Mr. Redfern anything she was ever asking of him. Always then to them to Mr. Redfern and to Miss Dounor then, always then Mrs. Redfern had everything from Redfern that she ever could ask of him. This was then a very certain thing. Always then Mrs. Redfern had the right to ask anything and always she would have anything she should ever be asking of Phillip Redfern. She had in her, Mrs. Redfern, no intelligence, no understanding, in desiring, Miss Dounor had in her then a perfect power of planning the attacking that should keep Mrs. Redfern in her place of condemnation for Mrs. Redfern had not in her any intelligence in desiring, she had a right to anything she ever could be asking and she would have it given to her then whenever she asked for anything, Mrs. Redfern was never changing in her being, always she was trying, always she was without understanding in her desiring, always Miss Dounor could completely plan an attacking when the time came for such action to restrain Mrs. Redfern in her unintelligent desiring.

  Miss Dounor was then perfectly right in her being. She was never changing, she was completely loving, she was completely understanding desiring, she was complete in the pride of attacking in her complete sensitive, completely intelligent, completely gentle being, completely understood desiring. Mrs. Redfern had no understanding in desiring. Mrs. Redfern always was trying to change the being she had in her to find some way of having intelligent desiring in her, always she would have from Redfern anything she could anything she should anything she would ever ask him to be giving to her. That was the being in her.