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

by Stein, Gertrude

  I am commencing now again a description of Julia coming to know some men and some women sometime in her living. I am beginning again describing being and expression of the being of them coming out of them of some men and some women Julia came to know in living.

  It is a queer thing that some one wanting to be giving and giving some one something is not giving that one what that one is wanting. It is a queer thing that some are wanting to be giving some something and are giving some something and are not giving them what they are wanting, what they are needing for their living. It is a queer thing that some are realising sometime that some other one is seeing, is remembering something that one cannot be seeing by looking, cannot be remembering by any kind of trying to remember that thing. It is a queer feeling to be really certain that one is not remembering the way another one is remembering, is not seeing the way another one is seeing, it is a queer feeling to be completely realising the way another one is seeing something another one is realising something and to be quite certain by realising that one can not be seeing, cannot be remembering that thing. It is a completely queer feeling, this that I am describing. It is a completely queer feeling to be realising that some one is seeing something, is feeling something is remembering something, to be completely realising that one being feeling, being remembering, being seeing something and to be completely realising that one realising another one's feeling seeing remembering that thing cannot one's self feel see and remember that thing. I can say that having such a feeling is completely having a queer feeling in being one being living. I can say that I am having completely a queer feeling when I am realising that I am not being feeling, seeing, remembering something when I am completely realising some one else being feeling, seeing, remembering that thing. I have then a completely queer feeling, I have been having a completely queer feeling, I have been realising some one being able to be feeling, remembering, seeing something and I have been realising that I am not able to be feeling, remembering, seeing that thing. It is not a completely queer feeling if one is not completely realising some one's experiencing something and completely realising not being going to be, not being experiencing that thing. This thing then is the complete thing in having complete queer feeling in living. I well tell about, this again and again. It is in me now, it will be in me again and again. It is in me now, it will be in me very often. I am now beginning the ending of my telling about the living in Julia Hersland and Alfred Hersland and other women and other men knowing them.

  Some one was saying of some one that he was an interesting one, he wanted himself to be such an earnest one, his father was not an earnest one that was a thing he was used to in his living, his mother was an indolent one, he was pretty well used to that thing that she was an indolent one, his brother was certainly not an earnest one he had not any hope that he could be in living, a fellow who was such a one as his brother was, an earnest one, he himself was not ever keeping going in being an earnest one, this one then was as another one said of him one asking very much of himself in living and he was not succeeding, very likely would not be succeeding in going on being an earnest one and he was not a disappointed one one disappointed with living, he was one not really filled with any earnest feeling in being one being living, he had earnest feeling of knowing that not any one in his family had been being in living an earnest one and this made of him in a way one who could be in living if he would be, a disappointed one. So then as some one said of this one this one was one feeling it in him that he might have been expecting having earnest feeling coming to be being inside him but he did not come to be expecting this thing as he was almost certain that his father did not have ever inside him earnest feeling, that his mother certainly was one going to be going on being indolent in being living, that his brother certainly never would have anything in him of earnest feeling, and then he to himself as one to be realised by him would not come to have inside in him certainly earnest feeling, that was very likely to be not in him this earnest feeling that he was expecting from some one inside him. So then this one as this other one said of him was a very moral man. He certainly asked a great deal of himself, that is what this other one said about this one, this one that the other one said was one who was certainly a very moral one in his being one going on being living. This one then as I was saying was a very moral man in being one expecting very much from himself inside him in his being one being living. He certainly was not having it in him very expectantly feeling this expectation of having earnest feeling going on being in him but he certainly was a moral one in having this very certain realisation that not his father not his mother not his brother not himself in learning living was an earnest one in feeling anything.

  It is a very amusing thing hearing some realising other ones being moral ones in living. She should do it, she wants so much from herself to herself in living, let her pay herself for being one going to be going to be a good one. That is what some one is saying about some one. It is very interesting to be helping some one going to be a good one. It is certain that some are going to be good ones in living. It is certain that to some this is in some other one very unbecoming. It is certain that to some this in some other one is very becoming. I have been helping some with this thing with coming to be going to be a good one. I have been helping some very much in this thing. Each one is herself, is himself inside her inside him and it is certainly a very interesting thing helping each one, helping some of each kind of them to be going to be a good one. I have sometimes been helping some, with very much feeling and serious consideration and steady struggling and earnest attention, I have sometimes been helping some to going to be a good one in their living for them. I have quite often been doing this thing. I am now going on telling a little more about the middle living in Julia Hersland and in some coming to know her then. She was then to herself inside her one honest in all daily living, one certainly having courage in being one certainly going to be going on living, one certainly going to be learning anything, one certainly to herself inside her in a way certainly a good one.

  One cousin is dead, another is quite a sick one. That is not so strange as they are then in the middle of their middle living, it is not strange and yet it is certainly something one is not wishing to have happening just then. It is natural that when there are very many of a family living and very many cousins and some aunts and uncles living that sometimes some of them should be sick ones, even that once in a while one of them should come to be a dead one. In a way it is a strange thing because very often for many years not any one in the family connection is a seriously sick one, not any one is ever thinking of any one they are then knowing as any where near to any dying. Sometimes it happens that one cousin is quite a sick one, sometimes it happens that all the uncles are dead by then and only two aunts are still living. Sometimes it happens in a family living that all the aunts and some of the uncles are still living. Sometimes it happens that the aunts and uncles that are sisters and brothers of the mother of some one are all living and the mother the sister of these uncles and aunts is the only one of that family who is not then any longer living. Sometimes it happens that pretty nearly every one of the brothers of a father of some one are not any longer living and the father then after some more years of being living is not any longer living. There is then sometimes in family living when there is not any one who is then a seriously sick one, that there has not been any one during many years coming to be not any longer a living one. Some have some feeling in them that sometime some one who is a cousin will be a seriously sick one and some one who is a cousin will come to be not any longer living. Some are feeling that sometime quite a number who are cousins to them will not be any longer living. Julia Hersland was in the ending of her middle living. Mrs. Dehning had been for sometime not any longer living. Mr. Dehning was not any longer living. Julia Hersland went on being one being living until well to the end of her older living. She had a brother George and a sister Hortense. These were both a good deal younger. She had children who were livin
g. She was not really ever married again although of course it would have been quite a natural thing for her to marry again and to marry William Beckling. He came as I said to be a sick one but he really did not come to be a dead one until the beginning of his old living. You never can tell anything certainly about such a thing.

  I am certainly going to be telling more about feeling being in living. I will tell some more about feeling being in living, feeling certain that one is being in living in some and then in some other men and women. I will not worry any one just now with this thing. This is in me for me and I am certainly not scaring myself with this thing. I certainly would not be frightening any one in living. I certainly would be wanting every one to be certain that they are feeling themselves being living.

  Some like the being they have in them. Some are frightened and then they do the thing that frightens them. Some are glad that when they have been sick ones it was of a kind of sickness that was not a very expensive one. Some when they have a sickness need expensive medicine to cure them. Some are certain that some other one is always certain to be needing to have money spent, and that they are of the kind in men and women who even when they come to be sick ones have a kind of sickness come to them that does not need expensive medicine for curing. Some are certain that they would be strong to be struggling if they were anywhere where they needed to be winning by fighting, one was saying that she was the kind of one who would be holding out until she would be a dead one because it was what she needed for her satisfaction, but she said she would not really be holding out as she might have been doing because she would not want that her husband should be losing a chance to be earning a living by working. Some are quite right in saying that they are one being one strong to be winning, some are quite right then in saying such a thing and these then some of them are winning in living and some of them are not winning in living. Some are quite right in saying that they are one to certainly injure some one and then it is some one not that one who is injuring that one. Some are quite right in saying they are one to injure some one, some do then injure some one, some do then not injure some one. Some are quite right to be asking a question after they have been silently listening while other people have been talking, some are quite right in not then letting themselves be asking a question. Some are certainly quite right to be listening very quietly very often, some are quite right to be almost never doing this thing.

  I will tell now a very little more how Julia Hersland and some others did something, did everything.

  Each one is coming gradually to be knowing in their living what way being is inside in men in women when they are quite young ones, completely little ones, older ones, middle aged ones, old ones, then each one comes gradually to be knowing how being is in men, in women when men when women are about sixty, about fifty, about fifty-five, about forty, about forty-five, about thirty, about twenty-eight, about twenty-six, about twenty-two, about eighteen and fourteen and eleven, and seven and five and three and two and under one to being only just beginning being in living. Each one gradually in living is realising how being is in men, how being is in women at different ages in them, each one comes in living to know more differences than just very young living, young living, middle living and old living. Again and again it is a startling thing to some one to be learning pieces of this thing of the way being is at different ages in men and in women. I am just now a little realising how old men and how old women mostly are when they are sixty-one. I have learnt a good deal about how being is in men between twenty three and forty-two. I know a good deal about twenty-seven, twenty-five, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-two, thirty-four, thirty-seven, forty and forty-two and then I know a little about fifty-seven and now I am learning something about being in women and in men when they are sixty and sixty-one. I know a good deal about them when they are very little ones, two and three years old in living, something about them when they are eleven, a very little when they are seventeen almost nothing when they are eighteen and fifteen. I know a very little about them when they are twenty-one. I know that being is very differently in them at different ages in different kinds in men and women. I know that some when they are sixty are healthy ones and some then when they are sixty are not at all then healthy ones. I know some when they are sixty are pretty well worn then and some are dead before they come to be that age in living and some are quite young men and quite young women in eating, sleeping, moving, talking and enjoying, and always then each one is learning in living how being is in each one ever living at different ages in their being living and I, I am just now being quite an astonished one, finding it quite astonishing to be really realising being sixty years old and being in living in men and in women.

  Alfred Hersland came to be older than sixty in living, Julia came to be a little older in living, Minnie who married Alfred later did not come in living to be sixty before she came to an ending, Mr. Dehning came to be sixty and he was pretty well beginning then to be quite an old man, Mr. Hersland came to be older a good deal older than sixty before he was not any longer one being living, he was when he was sixty in a way then a completely old one, he was then in a way then not at all a completely old one. I will tell about being old ones later in the description of Dehning and Hersland family living being completely then for that generation ended and ending.

  Minnie Mason as I said was married to Alfred Hersland. She would never have it that she would not be married to him when they were beginning to be needing being one in living. She certainly saw to it that they could then be married and quite reasonably happily married then. She knew David Hersland then. She told him she liked him and she would be a nice sister-in-law to him. She was quite a nice sister-in-law to him. She had not really much interest in Alfred having been married to Julia Dehning excepting only that it would be certain that Julia should be freed from him so that she herself should marry Alfred Hersland when they came to need to be together for living. So then Alfred Hersland went on living as I am saying. Julia Hersland went on living as I have been saying. I will tell now a little more about these things, about being in living.

  Certainly some are loving each other more in living than mostly any one is loving any other one. This was not a thing ever coming to be in Julia Dehning, this was not a thing that ever came to be really in Alfred Hersland. They had loving being sometimes in them each one of them. I have said this of them again and again. Almost every one ever knowing either one of them thought of each one of them that they had each one of them sometime loving feeling in them. I have told about loving feeling being in Alfred Hersland. I have told about loving feeling being in Julia Dehning. In a way loving feeling could be quite poignantly in Julia Dehning and she could have sweetness in her then as being in her then. In a way though as I was saying she had always in her stupid being as having it in her to be always resisting having any way in her of really learning anything and in a way she did not have any sweetness in her with this being in her. This stupid being was certainly always being in her and active enough inside her. In a way then she certainly had not really sweetness as actively in her as there was not any sweetness in her with the stupid being of her active in her and stupid being in her was always active inside her. She certainly was one not learning anything in being one being in living, she was one certainly having a dominant courage in her from being one certainly going on being living, she was one having certainly earnest intention as being in her from being one always wanting to have teaching being in the world as always existing, she was one being fairly interesting, from being one being really excited in being one always being living, she was one certainly being harsh and being troublesome and being without realising anything without feeling anything in being one needing anything as anything could be to her as something on which to be feeding, she certainly was one having affection and being in Dehning family Jiving, she was one having certainly sometimes loving feeling and having this poignantly with sweetness in being and sweetness in kissing and she was one certainly having stupid being as bei
ng in her all her living so that she was everlasting, actively resisting changing at all in attacking. She was one as I was saying not succeeding not failing in living. I am not certain I will just now tell any more about the being in Julia Dehning. Later I will tell more about her in the history of David Hersland that I will now very soon be writing. Certainly I will then tell more of her and of some who knew her and whom David knew by knowing her and some who knew him and then knew her because he knew her just then.