Read The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress Online
Authors: Gertrude Stein
I do know very much of the being in men and women. I do know very many of them. I do know the resemblances in them and the kinds of them, the divisions into kinds of them that is important for the understanding of them. I do know many of them, I know them, I understand, I explain them, they are themselves then to me, they are whole ones to me, I know it and I tell it, I know it more and more and more and more I tell it. Always I am thinking about it, always I feel the being the whole being sometime in each one, I know it sometime and I tell it sometime. I learn it as I see it and feel it and hear it as they repeat it, I understand it and then I understand in another one that is like the one that has then become a whole one to me, I learn new variations in it then from this now one and then sometime this one is a whole one to me and I begin again then with this one to know kinds in men and women and so on and always there is more to learn about it, there is more to know about it, there is more to tell about it.
This will be clearer now in a description of how several men and women each one came to be a whole one to me, a kind of men and women to me and then by resemblances between them and others of them there came to be more understanding of each kind in men and women in me and then other kinds in them to me. Later there will be more description of the knowing of all the kinds there are of men and women, of the resembling that makes kinds of them around one. Now there will be a little description of some, of the kinds they are, of learning by resemblances between men and women the being in them.
The way I think of every one is like this. This is the way they come to be in groups to me, in groups that have in them to be that those in them are resembling each one to the other one. The way I know them as resembling, that I have been just explaining, in every way that any one can see any one of them. The way I think of each one is like this that I will now begin describing.
In recognizing them as being of one group or of another group of them, that is one kind or another kind of men and women, everything in them, anything in them, their looks, their feelings, their expressions, their way of doing anything, their way of doing everything, everything, anything in them is to be noticed in its resemblance to something in another one. So then there come to be groups of kinds of men and women. So then as I was saying I come to know them, sometime all of them I am ever knowing, as kinds in men and women. Sometimes it is very confusing, sometimes very simple, sometimes very certain, sometimes very uncertain, sometimes for a long time baffling. There are then kinds in men and women. Sometime there will he a description of all the kinds of them.
The way I think of each one is like this. I think of them as having a bottom nature in them, as having sometimes mixed up in them other nature or natures with the bottom nature in them. This is now to be a little description of the way I always think of each one of them to lead later to a description of some of the kinds of men and women.
I think of each one I am ever knowing. Each one sometime is a whole one to me. Each one has a bottom nature in them of one kind of men and women. Each one may have in them other nature or natures in them mixed with each other or separate together in them. This is the way I think of men and women.
This is now a description of the way I feel and think the natures in them.
As I was saying each one has a bottom nature in them. Each one is one of a kind of men and women.
Each one has a bottom nature in them, each one has or has not another nature or other natures in them besides the bottom nature in them. These may be of the same kind as the bottom nature, they may not. This is now then a description of the way I feel and think the nature and natures in men and women.
This is then the way I feel the nature, the bottom nature, the other nature or natures, in men and women, this is then the way I feel each nature in each one of them. Each nature then is of a kind in men and women.
This is then the way I feel each nature in men and women, this is the way I feel the nature and make groupings of them, groupings of kinds of them.
The way I feel natures in men and women is this way then. To begin then with one general kind of them, this is a resisting earthy slow kind of them, anything entering into them as a sensation must emerge again from through the slow resisting bottom of them to be an emotion in them. This is a kind of them. This bottom in them then in some can be solid, in some frozen, in some dried and cracked, in some muddy and engulfing, in some thicker, in some thinner, slimier, drier, very dry and not so dry and in some a stimulation entering into the surface of the mass that is them to make an emotion does not get into it, the mass then that is them, to be swallowed up in it to be emerging, in some it is swallowed up and never then is emerging. Now all these kinds of ways of being are existing and sometime there will be examples of all these ways of being, now all these ways of being have it in common that there is not in them a quick and poignant reaction, it must be an entering and then an emerging mostly taking some time in the doing, the quickest of these then are such of them where the mud is dry and almost wooden, where the mud has become dry and almost wooden, or metallic in them and it is a surface denting a stimulation gives to them or else there is a surface that is not dry and the rest is dry and it is only the surface of the whole mass that is that one of which there has been any penetrating, and in some in whom the whole mass of the being is taking part in the reaction in some of such of them habit, mind strongly acting can make it go quicker and quicker the deep sinking and emerging. This is then a kind of them, the resisting kind of them, and there are many kinds of that kind of them. This is a very sure way of grouping kinds in men and women. I know it and I see men and women by it. Mostly to any one now it means nothing. I will begin again then this explaining. This group I have been describing are those that have resisting winning as their natural way of being. I will begin again explaining. There are a kind of men and women who have resisting as their way of winning fighting. There are another kind of men and women that have attacking as their way of winning fighting, these have poignant and quick reaction, emotion in such of them has the quickness and intensity of a sensation, that is one kind of men and women. Later I will tell more of them. Now I must begin again with the resisting, the dependent independent the kind I have been beginning describing in a way that may mean nothing to any other one, in the way I feel bottom being in men and women, in the way I make kinds in them, in the way each one comes to be a whole one to me seeing that one.
Resisting being is one way of being. This is now a description. As I was saying there are kinds of them kinds in men and women and there are kinds of kinds of them kinds in kinds in men and women. First then there are large groupings of them, the grouping into two kinds of them those having resisting, those having attacking as their natural way of winning fighting, dependent independent, independent dependent, these two kinds of them. Each group then has in a way the same way of hand-writing, the same way of succeeding, the same way of beginning, the same way of loving. Many of them are very baffling, many in each group of them, for there are in many of them other nature or natures in them, sometimes then they are very baffling, sometime to some one the bottom nature in them is certain, the kind the bottom nature in them is, and then, though it may take a long time to know the complete being in them, they are not any longer baffling. Soon a few short histories will be given of learning the bottom being in some and so clearing up the problem of them which for a long time was confusing, which always is confusing to any one not knowing the bottom being in that one.
This is clear then, bottom being is the natural way of winning, loving, fighting, working, thinking, writing in each one. This is not anything about, good or bad in them, in each one, about more or less brains in them but the kind of brains, the kind of good, the kind of bad, the kind of loving, the kind of fighting, the way of working, being in them at the bottom of them.
This is a very certain way of knowing, grouping men and women, understanding, seeing the kind of natures in them, making certain of the resemblances between them. This is then a universal grouping, always everywhere with every education there are these same kinds of them, some are a complete thing of one kind of them, some are very little just at the bottom one kind of them and all the rest of them are other kinds of them, there are in them every degree of mixing, every degree of emphasising, some are the whole of their kind of them, some are only part of their kind of them; to commence again then with my way of seeing them and then the way of knowing the resemblances between them and so the making groups of them. To begin again then with my feeling of bottom nature in each one.
There are then the two general kinds of them, the attacking kind the independent dependent kind of them, the resisting kind the dependent independent kind of them. There are all extremes of these two kinds of them, resisting kind that is almost always feverishly attacking, attacking kind that is almost always stubbornly resisting, the independent dependents that are almost all independent, almost all dependent, the dependent independent that are almost all dependent, that are almost all independent, it is often very confusing but the distinction has meaning, mostly to every one reading there is not any understanding, that is very certain, sometime to some one it can have meaning, always then there is going on explaining of the meaning of this dividing of men and women into these kinds of them.
There must now then be more description of the way each one is made of a substance common to their kind of them, thicker, thinner, harder, softer, all of one consistency, all of one lump, or little lumps stuck together to make a whole one cemented together sometimes by the same kind of being sometimes by other kind of being in them, some with a lump hard at the centre liquid at the surface, some with the lump vegetablish or wooden or metallic in them. Always then the kind of substance, the kind of way when it is a mediumly fluid solid fructifying reacting substance, the way it acts then makes one kind of them the resisting kind of them, the way another substance acts makes another kind of them the attacking kind of them. It and the state it is in each kind of them, the mixing of it with the other way of being that makes many kinds of these two kinds of them, sometime all this will have meaning. Now there will be a little more description given of these two kinds of substances and their way of acting and the kinds in each kind of them and then there will be given short histories showing learning kinds, learning individual ones by knowing this way of seeing, feeling bottom nature in men and women.
I know it and I want to tell it. I see it the bottom nature in each one I am ever knowing, sometimes, in each one. I see it, I see it and know it, its likeness and unlikeness to bottom nature in another one, I know and I want to tell it. I know it and I want to tell it and sometime some one else too will know it. I know it and I want to tell it and sometimes some one, some will know it. This is then the way I see it.
As I was saying there are two general kinds of them, the resisting, the attacking kind of them. There are two general kinds of them, there are many very many kinds of these two kinds of them, there are many very very many mixings in every one of some of all the kinds of them, in some of some of both the general kinds of them I know this now and now I will describe more of it. I will now describe natures in all men and women. In each one, some nature is the bottom nature of them. All natures are kinds, they are like natures in other men and women. This is now a little a beginning of the grouping of them.
First then to consider the general resisting group of men and women, considering them now only the bottom nature, which is resisting, in this group of them, leaving out now any considering of mixing in them of other nature or natures in them, of other forms of resisting nature in them besides the kind of resisting being that is bottom nature in each one, of any attacking nature or natures in them that are mixed up in them. It is clear then that it is now the general group of resisting beings that are to have now a describing, there will be a little explaining of the attacking being in resisting being. There is now to be here a short description.
As I was saying this is one way of seeing being, bottom nature as a substance that has a way of acting that makes one general kind of being, that makes all of that kind of them have it in common to have a certain way of fighting, thinking, loving, succeeding, beginning and ending, this is of course in each one affected by the quantity of bottom being in each one of their kind of being and of the other nature or natures in each one and so often it is all very confusing. Often in very much of any one's living it is very hard to know which nature in them is bottom nature in them, sometime this comes to be clear in each one, it is always there and repeating in each one, sometimes it is loudly sounding and after any one has heard it clearly in some one it is always there to that one, always repeating. The bottom nature then is clear in that one. In some it is clearer when they are very young, in some when they are young, in some when they are not so young, in some when they are old ones. Always in each one it is there repeating, sometime some one knows it in each one, sometime some one will know it in every one that one is ever knowing.
To begin then. The resisting kind of them. Many are of this kind of them and I know it in them. They are it, they live it and I know it. Sometime then I understand it, they are it, they live it and they repeat it, sometime then I know it when I see it, hear it, feel it in them, sometime then when they are of this kind of them I know it of them, sometimes for a long time it is baffling in some one for it is not clear in them, sometime it is clear in each one the bottom nature in them, when it is resisting being in them it makes certain kinds of ways of being, loving, thinking, fighting in such of them. They are it, they live it and sometime I know it. They are it, they live it, sometime they show it, sometime I understand it and now I will tell it the way I see it. I will tell the way I see and feel and hear and know resisting being in those that have it, then I will tell the way I see and feel and hear and know attacking being in those that have it, I will tell of the kinds there are in it and how by resemblances between those of that kind of it I know it, I will give then more examples of knowing it.