THE MAKING OF AMERICANS (Family Saga). Gertrude Stein
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Some of the men who were in business living with Mr. Hersland were always afraid of him, afraid of the big ways in him, afraid of his way of strongly fighting, afraid of the big beginning in him, all through their being with him in business living they were afraid of him, they were afraid when with him when he would be beginning things with them. Later they would think, if it ever came that there was an ending in him in his success in making a great fortune, they would perhaps think then that they had always known this about him but in his middle living they could not know it of him, no one could then know it about him which way the beginning in him would work out through him. There was in him then for every one who knew him in his business living the being great in beginning, there was in him always then strong fighting, there was in him then brushing people away from before him, there was a little in him then a turning away from some of them in a blustering fashion as if he were brushing them away from around him though really then he was going away from them so that he could not know it in him that he could not brush them away from before him, there was in him a hearty way of laughing, a strong way of fighting, there was in him his business living, then in the middle of his living very little impatient feeling such as his children just about then were beginning then to know in him. In his middle living in his business working what was for his children impatient feeling in him in their troubles with him was for the men around him strong beginning, strong fighting, brushing people away from before him. All of them knew it about him that he was as big as all the world in his feeling, the men around him in his business living knew this in him because of his big way of seeing, his children felt it in him in the trouble they had in them when they were walking with him and they were ashamed because of the queer ways he had of doing.
There were many different kinds of men that knew Mr. Hersland in his business Jiving and they had many different ways of feeling about the ways he had in him, about his strong beginnings, about his fighting everybody who was not to his feeling in him, about brushing people away from before him when he was going on with his beginning and full up with big feeling. Some as I was saying felt him to be a dangerous man for them, some of these went with him in beginning and then they liked it better to do their own finishing, for them even when he was carrying a beginning through perhaps to an ending the carrying it on by him had for them too much in it of beginning to ever be a comfort to them, some of these then did not fight him they began with him and then they went on in their own way to an ending. He would be then full up with beginning and with fighting, he might be going on too from the same beginning that he had begun together with them, he might be going on too to an ending but with him going on had always in it something of beginning and they left it to him to go on alone with his big feeling. They went on to their own ending. He was strong in fighting but as I was saying he had it in him to turn away in fighting into another direction in a blustering fashion and he never knew it in him that the nature in him would not carry him to the last fighting. He was strong in fighting and he liked it for he felt his strength then in him. He was strong in fighting he was not so strong in winning, more and more then at the ending of his middle living fighting in him turned into impatient feeling inside him, more and more then fighting in him in his late living broke down into weakness inside him. As I was saying he was strong in fighting, he was strong in brushing people away from before him. He would have in him then when he was fighting all the joy of being full up with beginning, he would have then when he was brushing people away from around him all the big feeling of being as big as all the world, inside him. When he was fighting, when he was brushing people away from before him, he was to himself then as if the whole world was in him, he was it, it was in him, there was not any difference then for him of him and all the world around him. It was a very joyous thing in him this big feeling, everybody who saw him felt it in him, his children it made uncomfortable when they were out with him. The big feeling in him was not in him a big empty feeling, it was to him to be always strong in fighting, not so strong in winning, sometimes then in a blustering fashion he would go another way out of fighting, to himself then always it was that he was brushing others away from him, he never knew it in him that he went in this way out of fighting till his children told him when in his later living his impatient feeling made them angry with him.
It was a very joyous thing in him this big feeling in him, everybody who saw him felt it in him. Everybody who had anything to do with him had a very strong feeling in them about this big feeling in him. As I was saying every one of the many millions of this kind of men have it in them to have some time inside them a big feeling, a feeling of themselves inside them as big as all the world around them. In many of the millions of this kind of men such a big feeling is in them only as beginning inside them it never works out to a finish through them. Some of such a kind of men have it in them to work it through to a finish to a complete thing the big feeling that was in them. There have not been many millions of the many millions of the kind of men the kind that have such a kind of big feeling some time in them who work it out to an ending, in some of them it remains in them as beginning and they never lose it out of them and so it is a strong thing always in them, yes some have it in them through all their living to keep a thing in them in beginning it is always big inside them it is always as a beginning in them it never breaks down into weakness in them it never breaks down into new beginnings inside them it never breaks down into impatient feeling in them, it never comes to be swelled out and then empty in them it remains in them as big as the feeling in them of being as big as all the world inside them to their feeling, it remains in them always as a big beginning. Mr. David Hersland in his being had a mixture in him. There was in him all through his living a big beginning that was always in him to the last moment of his living, more and more in his later living it did not fill him, more and more toward the end of his middle living he was filled up with impatient feeling and the big beginning that was always in him to his ending was not important in him to those who then knew him, more and more to everyone then around him there was to him only impatient feeling but always in him to every one who knew him there was even when he was full up with impatient feeling there was always in him a big thing inside him there was in him a big beginning inside him. And this was in him, a big beginning, until the last of his living. Later in his living when he was shrunk away from the outside of him, when he needed women inside him to fill him, when his impatient feeling had broken down into weakness in him there was still spread out inside him a big feeling and that was the beginning always in him, the beginning that always was in him all through his living. In his middle living then there were many ways of feeling this mixture in him by every one who then knew him. As I was saying there were many then who felt this big beginning in him and they also felt the danger in him of his strong fighting, fighting that did not carry the beginning in him to an ending, fighting that to his children was impatient feeling, that to some men who fought against him was a blustering turning away from them, that to some other men near him meant a brushing of them away from around him that to some men meant a living thing that they admired in him for it gave to such men a feeling of living inside them, that meant to some women a weakness in him so that they felt it in them that they could manage him by ingratiating diplomatic domineering—mostly in his middle living he brushed these away from around him but they did not lose then the feeling they had in them about him,—that meant to poor people near him a hearty nature in him, that meant to his children in their younger living a thing to make them ashamed when they were walking with him sometimes made them afraid of him and then in his later living made them angry with him and in his latest living made them take care of him, made his wife feel her power with him and sometimes feel she had no importance for him, made him to the governesses and servants in the house with him a man who would not interfere with them for they could not feel a power in him for the feeling in him to them that in his business living made strong fighting in him they saw it in him in the daily living in the house with him they saw that it used itself up without touching the people he was fighting, there was to them no contact in him and so in the household living he did not count for them, it was Mrs. Hersland who was important for them.
In his business living, among the men who knew him, some were afraid of him, they were mostly not afraid to fight with him they felt it in them that he was strong in fighting and that