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

by Stein, Gertrude

  There are many kinds of men, there are many kinds of women there are many kinds of ways of mixing them in the children that come out of them. There are many kinds of men and many millions made of each kind of them. Some kinds of them have more in all of them of individual being than there is in some of the other kinds of men. In each kind of men, in the many millions of each kind of them there are always among them some with much, some with less, and some with little, and some with almost not any individual feeling in them some of such of them need other men around them to give the man an individual feeling in them, some men have in them so much individual feeling in them that they make their way through everything around them, some of them have it so much in them that they feel themselves as big as all the world around them.

  There are some men who have always such bigness in them, there are some who have such a feeling in them when a new thing begins in them and then soon these lose it out of them. There are some who have such a feeling in them when they are first beginning their individual being, some of such ones never lose it out of them for they are always strong to be beginning and beginning is all of living to them. In some of such ones of them it comes in their later living to be only impatient feeling, they are then no longer beginning they are then full up with impatient feeling. Later in their living they have not enough in them any more of impatient feeling to fill them, they are old then and shrinking away from the outside of them so then it is in them the always beginning and being then in their feeling as big as all the world around them, then it comes to be in them only the being full up with impatient feeling and then it comes to be when they are old and weakening it comes to be a shrinking away of themselves from the outside of them, they are old men then and they have not any success in them, they are not any longer full up then not with big feeling or beginning or even any more with impatient feeling, they are old then and have not any success in them and it needs others then to make them full again inside them and mostly in their old age this does not happen in them, mostly in their old age such ones are never full inside them.

  There are many kinds of men. Some kinds of them have it in them to feel themselves as big as all the world around them, some of this kind have it in them to keep this always in them all through their living. Some of this kind of men have such a sense in them only when a new thing begins in them, soon they lose it out of them. Some of this kind of men have such a sense in them only in their own beginning, later they lose it out of them. Some have it in them as their beginning and always they are beginning in their living and this feeling comes again and again to be in them with each beginning of their living and beginning in such of them is all there is of living. Some, and David Hersland who had come to Gossols to make his great fortune was one of them, some of such a kind of men have it in them to be as big as all the world in their beginning, they are strong in beginning and beginning things is all of living in them, then each beginning comes to be in them an impatient feeling. These never lose their big feeling they just begin a new thing and they are strong in beginning, they are as big then as all the world around them, they keep their big feeling for each time the beginning in them turns into impatient feeling they are then full up with impatient feeling, this makes them full inside them, they never have it in them to lose this feeling of being as big in them as all the world around them, they never can lose this feeling then until they are old men and weakening and then they shrink away from the outside of them and so they lose this certain sense of being as big as all the world around them for then they have this empty space in them where they have shrunk away from the outside of them and they have to be filled up again, they have not enough then of big feeling in them, they have not enough strength to have in them then a beginning, they have not enough then of impatient feeling to fill them, they need other people to help them to fill them up inside them, they can never again have in them of themselves then a feeling of being as big as all the world around them.

  As I have been saying there are many kinds of men and there are many millions made of each kind of them. David Hersland who had come to Gossols to make for himself a great fortune was of one kind of them. He was of the kind of them that feel themselves to be as big as all the world around them. Every one who knew him felt it in him. His children felt it less in him for they knew from their daily living with him that this was only in him when he was beginning, mostly he was filled up with impatient feeling. He had this big feeling in him, they knew it about him but, for them, it was his being full up with impatient feeling that was important to them in their daily life with him.

  His children, in the way it almost always is with men, his children always were outside him, part of the world he was handling, sometimes using them sometimes brushing them away from before him, often fighting with them and always dropping or domineering them.

  His children had it in them, in the way that almost all children have it in them, his children had it in them for a long time to be afraid of him. Almost all the time of their living together in the house with him they had such a fear in them, but really they had it less in them than many children for the fathers of them, they had it less from him as they learnt more and more to know it of him that he was mostly filled up inside him with impatient feeling, so they had always less and less of fear in them, they knew it more and more of him that he would not keep up anything against the wish in them, soon he would be changing, he never would carry out into action any anger he felt with them, it would soon be in him an impatient feeling and then there was not any more, for them, anything to fear from him. Always they more and more had this in them about him and so more and more they did not fear him. Always there remained a little fear in them for children never know all that a father can have in him. He may have it in him to be worse than they have ever known him, it is this uncertain danger to them that may be in him that makes a father always fearful to his children, it is in his voice, in his movements, in the sudden outbursts from him, children never can know really what is going on in the father of them as they know it in other children around them or in the mother of them. However the Hersland children learned more and more in their daily living that their father was mostly filled up with impatient feeling, they knew he had a big feeling in him, they felt this sometimes in him, sometimes it made them ashamed when they went about with him, sometimes they liked the big joyous feeling that it gave him but mostly for all three of them in their younger living with him the important thing about him was that he was filled up with impatient feeling.

  Beginning was all of living with him, in a beginning he was always as big in his feeling as all the world around him. Beginning was almost all of living in him. Always he was beginning and always he was strong in his beginning, always then he was as big as all the world in his feeling.

  There are many ways of beginning, there are some things in living that have in them always more of beginning than other things in living, education is such a part of living, eating and doctoring and making a great fortune in a place where everybody is beginning in their living.

  Ways of educating children, ways of eating and doctoring, all have it in them to be always in a beginning.

  In many people's living beginning is all there is of living, in many people's living it is dying ending that is to them all they have in them, some of these have always in them the fear in them of dying of ending, and then ending is in their feeling in every moment of their living. There are many ways for them of having such a feeling always in them the feeling of ending always inside them, some of them have it in a fear that is always in them, some have it in a sad feeling always somewhere inside them in them, some have it from a feeling that is not a sadness in them but a fullness of ending to them and these always are talking of how everything is always ending; ending is all of living to many men and very many women, ending is all of living with them, and these have not a fear in them, they have not sadness in them, all that there is for them is ending and that gives to their living fullness and m
eaning. Such ones are very full of ending full of ending as some other men and some women have it in them to be very full with beginning, for such ones then there is, too, very much of meaning in ways of educating children, ways of eating and ways of doctoring. In all of these things then there is much beginning there is much of ending.

  In ways of educating children in ways of eating and ways of doctoring there can be always to them who have in them beginning as all there is of living, much to content them; for those who have in them ending as the important feeling in them they too can find it strongest in them for them in ways of educating children in ways of eating and ways of doctoring. These then who have for them as the whole of living either always beginning or always in an ending, these then can have it in them in many ways and with many kinds of feelings inside them, they can have it in a strong fear in them they can have it without any such a fear in them, they can have it with dying as always the strongest thing in them, they can have it with living as the most conscious thing in them, there are many ways that they can have it in them, with sadness or cheerful feeling in them, with energy or weakness in them, but always they have it together in all of them that ending or beginning is all of living to them, and for them ways of eating, ways of doctoring, ways of educating children are for them the strongest thing inside them.

  In David Hersland the father of the three children whose lives we are now soon to be watching, to David Hersland beginning was all of living to him. For him there was in his living ways of eating, ways of doctoring, ways of educating his children, ways of making his great fortune here in Gossols where he was to make his important beginning.

  There are many ways of eating, for some eating is living, for some eating is dying, for some thinking about ways of eating gives to them the feeling that they have it in them to be alive and to be going on living, to some to think about eating makes them know that death is always waiting that dying is in them, some of such of them have then a fear in them and these then never want to be thinking about ways of eating, they want their eating without any thinking, they never want to have the fear in them that comes to them with thinking about ways of eating, of ways of keeping health in them.

  As I have been saying to some eating is a way of living, to some eating is dying. To many, now, thinking about eating is all of living to them, it is living, it is always beginning, it is like doctoring or educating children. David Hersland the father of the three children whose lives we will now soon be knowing was such a one, beginning was all of living to him, he had it in him in his beginning to be as big as all the world around him. He had it in him to be always beginning, beginning was living to him and this will come out in the history of him. He had it in him to be always beginning. There are some things in living that have it in them to have always more of beginning to them than other things in living, eating is such a part of living, eating and doctoring and educating children. Ways of eating, ways of doctoring, ways of educating children, all have it in them to be always in a beginning.

  As I was saying David Hersland was a big man and he liked different ways of eating, he liked to think about what was good for him in eating, he liked to think about what was good for every one around him in their eating, and he was always changing, he was always beginning and often he was full up with impatient feeling; this could be in him about the way of eating as it was in him about everything in his living. David Hersland was a big man, sometimes one felt about him that he filled up the whole world he looked so large then to every one who saw him, often he did not have such a bigness in him. Not that he was really such a large man to look at him but when he was full up with beginning he filled everything around him, he was as big then as all the world which was then in him to everybody who then saw him. As I was saying there are many kinds of men and there are many millions of each kind of them. As I was saying there are some kinds of them that have in them so much individual being in them that one can never think it about them that there are many millions made like them. Mr. David Hersland was of such a kind of them, he had it in him to be so full up with beginning that he was a big man filling up all the space around him, no one could come to think it about him then that there are many millions made just like him, but there are many millions made of each kind of men, there are many millions made who have such a bigness in them, some of them always have such a bigness in them every moment of their being, some have it only in their beginning soon they lose it out of them, some have it every time they are beginning and beginning is all of living to them, some of such ones are big in all their living, some have it in them only at moments in their living but all of them have it in them sometimes to be as big as all the world around them, all the world is in them and everybody can see it who then sees them.

  David Hersland was such a one when he was in each one of his beginnings, soon then he would be filled up with impatient feeling and then there would be in him less of such a big feeling to every one who then looked at him, later in his life he was old and weakening and he then was shrunk away from the outside of him, he then did not have inside him enough to fill him, he was not then a big man to every one who saw him.

  As I was saying there are many millions of every kind of men and there are many millions who have in them the kind of being David Hersland had in him. They have it in them some of them, as I have been saying, in all of their living, some have it in them in their eating, some have it in them in their drinking, some have it in them in business and their living, some have it in them in their loving, some have it so much in them that they have Arabian nights inside them; there are many millions of such a kind of them and this is a history of one of that kind of them, of David Hersland and the big ways he had in him.

  As I was saying the father of the three of them whose lives we are soon now to be watching, Mr. David Hersland, had come to Gossols to make for himself his great fortune. There was for him, as I was saying, beginning as the whole of living, there was for him in living, eating and doctoring and educating his children and making for himself a great fortune. There were other things in him but they were not for him so important to him, they had not for him so much of beginning. As I was saying ways of eating were always to him living, they were to him always full of beginning and this is a history of the way he tried many of them. As I was saying there are many ways of eating, for some eating is living for some eating is dying, for some thinking about ways of eating gives to them the feeling that they have it in them to be alive and to be going on living, to some to think about eating makes them know that death is always waiting that dying is in them. Mr. Hersland always liked to think about what was good for him in eating, he liked to think about what was good for every one around him in their eating, he liked to buy all kinds of eating, he liked all kinds of thinking about eating, eating was living to him, eating was beginning to him, beginning was all of living in him, always he was interested in changing in having new ideas new ways of eating, eating was living for him, ways of eating were ways of beginning for him, eating was living to him and there are many millions always made just like him, many millions who have always new ways of eating in them, new ways of thinking about eating always inside them, for all of such then eating is living, to them.

  There are many ways of thinking about eating, some who are always thinking about eating have not in them any love of eating, some who are always thinking about eating love to have eating going on inside them. Some of each of these kinds of men and women and children have it in them to think about what is good for them in eating, some do not have any such feeling in them eating is an end in itself for them, eating is what they need to content them. This is true of some of them who have not in them much love of the real eating going on in them, this is true of some of them who love the eating always going on inside them.

  Mr. Hersland had many theories in him, eating was to him a pleasure when it was going on inside him, but to him that was not the important thing for him. The important thing to him in him were ways of knowing
what kind of eating was good for him, ways of having in him new ways of beginning, this was important to himself inside him. Eating was not, to himself, eating, for him, it was living, it was theorising and believing, it was new ways of beginning. He loved to have eating going on inside him and then often, before finishing, he would be filled up, to complete him, with impatient feeling and then he would push eating away from him, then he would be changing, then he would find new things good for him, he would find in eating a new beginning.