The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (47 page)

     There are many ways of being what every one who knows such a one thinks them.
     There are many ways of being, there are many of many different kinds of men and women who give to every one who knows them the same feeling of them. There are many millions always being made of men and women who give to different ones who know them a different feeling of them. There are some, there are many of many kinds of men and women who give to every one the same feeling about them, Mary Maxworthing in her way was such a one. The second governess the Herslands had was a very different kind of such a one. Every one who knew her had the same estimate of her. The children laughed at her, they neither liked or disliked her, Mrs. Hersland had not any feeling about her. Later this one married a baker. He was a big blond man, and they got on very well together. She had children, she grew a little larger, her face was thinner, she was a little dirtier then, not very much busier, she never surprised any one who knew her. Her father and her mother had a dairy farm and they managed to get along. She had a brother who was to succeed the father. It did not make any difference to any one who was her father or her mother or her brother. No one ever had much interest about her, not even the baker, he liked her, they got along very well together, he gave the Hersland children cream-puffs while he talked to her. She married and sometimes later the children or Mrs. Hersland or Mr. Hersland would see her, she was a little grimier then, but nothing was changed in her, she was a little larger, her face and neck were thinner, she and the baker were satisfied with each other.
     As I was saying men and women have many of them in them their individual feeling in their way of feeling it in them about themselves to themselves inside them about the ways of being they have in them. Some have almost nothing of such a feeling in them, some have it a little in them, some have it in them always as a conscious feeling, some have it as a feeling of themselves inside them, some have it as a feeling of themselves inside them as important to them, some have it as a feeling of being important to themselves inside them as being always in them, some have it as being important to the others around them, some have it as being inside them that there is nothing existing except their kind of living, some have it that they feel themselves inside them as big as all the world around them, some have it that they are themselves the only important existing in the world then and in some of them for forever in them, these have in them the complete thing of being important to themselves inside them. Some have it as a feeling of being important in them from things they are doing, from religion in them, from the ways of living they have in them, from the clothes they have on them, from the way they have of eating, from the way they have of drinking, from the way they have of sleeping, some have a feeling of importance in them from the kind of living they have in them and the others around them have in them, there are many ways of having a feeling of one's self inside one, there are man}'ways of having an important feeling in one, there are some who have in them a feeling of importance inside but not a feeling of importance of themselves to themselves inside them, there are some who have inside them an important feeling in them but not an individual feeling in them, there are many ways for men and women to have themselves inside to them and this is a history of some of them.
     Mr. David Hersland had in him a feeling of being as big as all the world around him. He had his ideas of educating children. He was always full up with beginning. He was as big as all the world around him. He never thought about it in himself then, it was natural to him. Each beginning was in him such a feeling.
     He had first seen the first governess they had and he had had a feeling in him that was the ideal governess for his children. She was a good musician, it was necessary then to him that they should have much music in their education. She was a good scholar in french and German, he talked to her about the way he would insist always that his children should talk french and German. She was an ideal to him, she was beginning to him, he would see to it that the children learned all this governess could teach them. He talked to her in the beginning often about them and his rules and wishes for them. Then she made no impression on him, she was not evident enough in the family living to attract his attention. She soon died out of him. Soon he forgot about the children and their education. Then she left them. Then he was angry with the children that they knew so little french and German.
     Then there was in him a new beginning, he thought it better for their English that they should forget all the french and German the first governess had taught them. They should not spend time learning music when they needed physical training, he would have a good healthy woman, not a too well educated one, to help them with their lessons and to see that they did gymnastics and swimming. This time he wanted a big healthy woman. He did not want a small one that had no color in her face and was careful in every motion. He wanted a strong healthy woman, one who knew something about farming, one who did not spend her time in reading or piano practicing. He had in him then a new beginning. He wanted a big healthy woman who knew all about farming. The second governess then was such a one. Her father and mother had a dairy farm and she was a big blond woman and she had red cheeks and she was not a musician and she did not know any french and German and she had had only an ordinary education and she knew nothing about spending her time in reading. There was no question that she was the ideal Mr. Hersland had then in him for a governess for his children.
     He never forgot about her altogether as he did about the first one. She was always some one to him, he liked big healthy women, she did not know much about farming but she listened while he talked to her about farming and about the children. Later he did not talk to her about the children, a little still about farming, but when he noticed her she made a certain impression on him. Later when she was married to the baker he would drop in to see her and eat a cake while he talked to her. He did not mind much that she was larger then and paler and a little dirtier in her dressing a little sordider, grimier. She was not important ever to the children but this will come out later in the history of the children as it will be written of each one of the three of them.
     There are many ways for men to have loving in them and loving come out from them.
     Some men have it in them in their loving to be attacking, some have it in them to let things sink into them, some let themselves wallow in their feeling and get strength in them from the wallowing they have in loving, some in loving are melting strength passes out from them, some in their loving are worn out with the nervous desire in them, some have it as a dissipation in them, some have it as they have eating and sleeping, some have it as they have resting, some have it as a dissipation of them, some have it as a clean attacking, some have it as a simple beginning feeling in them, some have it as the ending always of them, some of them are always old men in their loving.
     Every one then every man and every woman have then their own feeling in loving, their own way of feeling in religion, their own way of laughing, of eating, of drinking, of going on living, of taking what comes to them, of looking for things to irritate them or content them, their own way of beginning and of ending.
     Mr. Hersland then had his own way of being in him. The governesses had each one their own way of being in them. Each one had a certain effect on him.
     It is very interesting that every one has in them their kind of stupid being. It is very important to know it in each one which part in them, which kind of feeling in them is connected with stupid being in them. There is then stupid being in every one. There is in every one their own way of living, of eating, of drinking, of beginning and ending, remembering and forgetting, of going on and stopping. There is then in every one their own way of responding to things, to any one that touches them, to everything in living. There is in every one repeating. There is in every one a different way of repeating in their beginning and in their middle living and in their ending. Sometime there will be a complete history of every one and of all the repeating in them.
     Eating and sleeping then and drinking and being loving and working and waking and resting and doctoring and having religion and beginning and ending. Mr. Hersland was now in the beginning of his middle living. He was beginning then his habits of middle living. He was beginning then his regular country house living and governesses were then part of the regular living he had in him, with his eating and sleeping and talking and beginning. Habits were beginning in him. Repeating is always in every one, it settles in them in the beginning of their middle living to be a steady repetition with very little changing. There may be in them then much beginning and much ending, but it is steady repeating in them and the children with them have in them the pounding of the steady march of repeating the parents of them have in them. Mr. Hersland then was beginning to have in him his repeating of beginning middle living. He had then in him eating and sleeping and hygiene and much beginning and hearty laughing and impatient being and a kind of interest in some people near him and some brushing away of his wife from around him and his regular derangements in his stomach and in his dieting. He had in him then the beginning of his middle living.
     Every one, then, as I was saying, have in them, always, repeating. Every one who does not die before then has in them the steady pound of repeating in the beginning of their middle living. It becomes then more and more part of them, their way, their way of drinking, their way of beginning and of ending, their way of talking, of laughing, of having impatient being in them, their way of being attracted by women and by men.
     There was then the beginning of middle living now in Mr. Hersland. It was in him then already in the beginning of their living in Gossols and having the first governess for the children. For Mrs. Hersland it was not yet in beginning. It came to her later with the governess Madeleine Wyman.
     A part then of middle living in Mr. Hersland was his way of educating his children; his daily habits then in his country living with his wife and his children and a governess to teach them. The ideas in him then about their education were his habits of beginning middle living. The attraction each governess had or had not for him, the impression she made or did not make on him was all part of his middle living. Later in the ending of his middle living it came to be a more sodden repeating. Now repeating was in him a varied vigorous pounding. This is now a description.
     Mr. Hersland, as I said once when speaking of the kind of loving he had in him, Mr. Hersland had then in the beginning of his middle living, had his wife to content him. She was then a pleasant feeling in him, she was then a little of a joke to him, she had then still a little resisting for him, he then did not much brush her away from around him, he did not then forget about her existing, in his feeling, she was then still important to him. As I was saying, then in their younger living, still in the beginning of his middle living she gave him all the stimulation he needed to attract him, for his loving; he was not then yet full up with impatient feeling, he had then yet a pleasant feeling in living and her resisting was important enough to him to hold him. Later he needed more to fill him, in his latest living when he was shrunk away from the outside of him, when he had not enough beginning enough impatient feeling to fill him, he needed then another kind of woman. This will come out later in the later history of him.
     At this time then in this beginning of his middle living he had in him a cheerful sense of being, he had enough contentment from his wife, he did not then need much stimulation. He had in him then some impatient feeling but this was not yet very strongly in him. It came to be in him then when he was going to be very soon ready for a new beginning. It was in him then when there was an end then of something or it was continuing too long to suit him, whether it was his own or some one else's talking, whether it was his own or some one else's doing, that never made any difference to him, it was the sense in him of a new beginning that gave to him impatient feeling.
     In the beginning of his middle living then some women were attractive to him. It was not then much of a need in him. Mostly then it was a joke to him. Later he had more need in him. This will come out in the later history of him.
     There are many ways then of having some feeling about people near one. This is different in different parts of the living in one. Now this is a history of the middle living of Mr. Hersland, of the beginning and middle of his middle living. Later there will be a history of the ending of his middle living and then of his later living, in the written history of his children.
     There are many ways then that one has feeling for people near them. This is now a history of feeling in Mr. Hersland in the beginning of his middle living.
     As I was saying he selected the two first governesses for his children, the first was his ideal of a governess for them then, a woman with governess training, a good musician and having a thorough understanding of french and German. She was his ideal then. When he told her what his ideals were for his children, she made an impression on him. Mostly, later, he never noticed her, she made no impression on him, sometimes later when she listened while he told her what he knew about education she made some impression but it was always a reflection, it was only when she was listening that she made an impression and that was only by virtue of her training, the listening of somebody so well-trained in education made an impression on him, it was her training it was never herself that made an impression on him. When she left the Herslands he had not any longer much interest in talking to her training, he was already then full up then with a new beginning.
     He had then a feeling that he wanted a big strong healthy woman to be with his children. They could get enough education from public schools and reading, he had had that kind of education, it would be the best thing for them. He told the governess what he wanted she should do for the children, what his ideas were about them. She listened to him but her listening was not stimulating, but she made an impression, he liked well enough to notice her then and later when she was married to the baker, when she was larger then and a little grimy he still liked to see her, he would stop by at her shop where she was sitting attending to the custom and he would eat a cake there and ask her how she was getting on and he liked that much contact with her. Later there was a third governess Madeleine Wyman.