THE MAKING OF AMERICANS (Family Saga). Gertrude Stein
religion inside him, as I was saying, kept him existing, it was not that it filled a need in him, it was not that he used it in his living, it kept him continuous and existing as did his eating and sleeping. Religion was to him like eating and sleeping, religion was to him also like washing and it was this in him, the religion like washing that made him important to every one who knew him. Religion was to him as eating and sleeping was in him, religion was in him as washing was to him and this religion in him made him important to every one who knew him.
Washing is very common, almost every one does some washing, with some it is only for cleansing, with some it is a refreshing, with some a ceremonial thing that makes them important to every one who knows them. In those who have religion in them as washing is to some of them who make it a distinction in them, in some who have religion in them as washing is to some who do it as a necessary part of their daily living, such have from it a distinction; washing is not a natural thing to happen like eating or sleeping, washing is not like eating or sleeping, it has in it a distinction and to them who do it every day as a natural thing to them, they have it in them to be important to every one who knows them, when religion is in any one as this washing is in some who have it in them, then such a one is important to every one who knows him.
Eating and sleeping are not like loving and breathing. Washing is not like eating and sleeping. Believing is like breathing and loving. Religion can be believing, it can be like breathing, it can be like loving, it can be like eating or sleeping, it can be like washing. It can be something to fill up a place when some one has lost out of them a piece that it was natural for them to have in them. To be continuous in existing by an every day eating and sleeping is like what some have in religion, then it is not from a need in them, it is from the natural way they have in them to be continuous in their existing. Feeding and religion with such of them is every day natural to them. Washing is different from eating and sleeping. It is natural to some and it makes such ones important to every one that knows them. Some have religion in them as some have washing and they are always important to every one who knows them. To have washing as natural to them is some distinction to those who have it as natural in them, to have religion in them to be in them as washing is to some, those to whom it is natural from the beginning to have religion in them in such a way as some have washing is to make of them who have religion in any such a way natural to them important to every one who knows them.
Mr. Richardson had always had, from his beginning, religion in him. It was always natural in him as was his eating and sleeping and washing. He kept on this way in his existing, it was natural to him to keep on existing, it was natural to him to have in him religion and eating and sleeping and washing, he had had them all always from his beginning. It did not make him important to himself inside him, it made him important to everyone who knew him. There were many things in him and these will come out in the history of him. Always religion was in him, always he was important to every one who knew him. There were some who did not understand it in him, who thought it of him that religion was in him as a kind of lying but these did not understand religion in him, it was in him and had been in him from his beginning, it was in him as eating was in him, as sleeping was in him, as washing was to him. It did not make him important to himself inside him, it did make him important to every one that knew him.
This father Mr. Richardson and his two children Eddy and Lilly were different from any of the others who lived then in the small houses near the ten acre place where the Hersland family were living in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living. Slowly the Hersland children came to know the three of them, they began to know then the character of the two children Eddy and Lilly Richardson, they never came to have in them, the Hersland family then, much more knowledge of the father of the two children Mr. Richardson. The character of Eddy and Lilly Richardson will come out then in the history of the Hersland children as they come to know it in them. There were then many families living in the small houses near the ten acre place where the Hersland family were living then in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living. There were many families of, for them, poor queer people living near them and each one of the families of them had in them their own way of living, their own way of going on existing, of having uncertain things in them, of earning their daily living. More and more the Hersland family came to know them, more and more the Hersland children came to be of them.
There were many families of them. Some of them had many children. Almost all of them had things in them to interest the Hersland children. Some of them were good companions to them in their out door living, some in the school life they lead together with them, some from the books and other things that they loaned to them, all these children in the little houses near them were in some way interesting to some one of the three of them either from what they were in themselves then or from their lives or what they had in their houses to lend to them, they were, all of these children of the, for them, poor queer people around them, they were all in some way interesting to some one of the three of them. They were, all of them, more and more interesting to the three Hersland children as these came always more and more to know them, as they came to be more and more a part of them. The Hersland children came to know them, they came to know others who knew these who lived near them, some who lived in other parts of Gossols and some of these others that the Hersland children came to know through the families near them, some of these others came later to be very important to the three of them, some came to be important to the father of the Hersland children, some also to the mother of them, all this will come out in the later history of them. This was the beginning of living for the Hersland children, and more and more then they came to know the, for them, poor queer people who lived in the little houses near them in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living.
So then it was then slowly coming to be true of them that the three children were more entirely of them, the poorer people who lived around them, than they were of their mother then, than their mother was of them then, though they were all there was of their mother's daily living then. This was true of them then in the years when they were only beginning to know themselves inside them. Later then in their living with the same people around them, Alfred the elder son of the two boys then was beginning to have inside him a feeling in him as there always had been in the mother of them, he was beginning then not to be any longer of them the poorer people who lived around them, more and more then such a feeling went out of him and he was beginning to have it fill up in him then inside him to replace the feeling that was not then any longer in him, out of the feeling that gave his mother her important being. In the daughter there was more in her then when she was older of the kind of feeling that their father had in him. In the younger son there always remained in him all through his later living the feeling that made him be one to him with the people that had been around him. All this will come out in the detailed history of each one of the three of them. Now in the beginning they were all three of them of the people who lived in the small houses around them. To begin again then when it was slowly coming to be true of them that the three children were more entirely of them, the poorer people who lived around them, than they were of their mother then, than their mother was of them then, though they were all there was of their mother's daily living then. They were all there was of their mother's daily living then but they were nothing to her then of the important being that was beginning to be strong inside her then. They were to her in her then as they had been when she was bearing them, they were part of her as her arms or heart were part of her then, she felt them, she took care of them then as she took care of her body out of which she had once made them and so she always felt them. Later she was lost among them, she would be scared then and they were no longer of her then, they were not any longer in her then to her, she was for them then a gentle scared little-thing. She was lost among them then, sometimes they would be good to her then, oftener she would not be existing for them then, mostly she was scared then and the important feeling was dead in her then, she had lost them, they were not of her any more then and she lost her body with them. Sometimes then they would be good to her, mostly they forgot about her, slowly she died away among them and then there was no more of living for her, she died away from all of them. She had never been really important to any of them, she was not important to her husband then for she was not enough to fill him now that he was shrinking away from the outside of him, she was not enough any more now to fill him, she was not in any way then important to her children for now they did not need to have in them the feeling that she had for them when they were for her as if she was still carrying