THE MAKING OF AMERICANS (Family Saga). Gertrude Stein
in them to have always more of beginning to them than other things in living, eating is such a part of living, eating and doctoring and educating children. Ways of eating, ways of doctoring, ways of educating children, all have it in them to be always in a beginning. As I was saying David Hersland was a big man and he liked different ways of eating, he liked to think about what was good for him in eating, he liked to think about what was good for every one around him in their eating, and he was always changing, he was always beginning and often he was full up with impatient feeling; this could be in him about the way of eating as it was in him about everything in his living. David Hersland was a big man, sometimes one felt about him that he filled up the whole world he looked so large then to every one who saw him, often he did not have such a bigness in him. Not that he was really such a large man to look at him but when he was full up with beginning he filled everything around him, he was as big then as all the world which was then in him to everybody who then saw him. As I was saying there are many kinds of men and there are many millions of each kind of them. As I was saying there are some kinds of them that have in them so much individual being in them that one can never think it about them that there are many millions made like them. Mr. David Hersland was of such a kind of them, he had it in him to be so full up with beginning that he was a big man filling up all the space around him, no one could come to think it about him then that there are many millions made just like him, but there are many millions made of each kind of men, there are many millions made who have such a bigness in them, some of them always have such a bigness in them every moment of their being, some have it only in their beginning soon they lose it out of them, some have it every time they are beginning and beginning is all of living to them, some of such ones are big in all their living, some have it in them only at moments in their living but all of them have it in them sometimes to be as big as all the world around them, all the world is in them and everybody can see it who then sees them.
David Hersland was such a one when he was in each one of his beginnings, soon then he would be filled up with impatient feeling and then there would be in him less of such a big feeling to every one who then looked at him, later in his life he was old and weakening and he then was shrunk away from the outside of him, he then did not have inside him enough to fill him, he was not then a big man to every one who saw him.
As I was saying there are many millions of every kind of men and there are many millions who have in them the kind of being David Hersland had in him. They have it in them some of them, as I have been saying, in all of their living, some have it in them in their eating, some have it in them in their drinking, some have it in them in business and their living, some have it in them in their loving, some have it so much in them that they have Arabian nights inside them; there are many millions of such a kind of them and this is a history of one of that kind of them, of David Hersland and the big ways he had in him.
As I was saying the father of the three of them whose lives we are soon now to be watching, Mr. David Hersland, had come to Gossols to make for himself his great fortune. There was for him, as I was saying, beginning as the whole of living, there was for him in living, eating and doctoring and educating his children and making for himself a great fortune. There were other things in him but they were not for him so important to him, they had not for him so much of beginning. As I was saying ways of eating were always to him living, they were to him always full of beginning and this is a history of the way he tried many of them. As I was saying there are many ways of eating, for some eating is living for some eating is dying, for some thinking about ways of eating gives to them the feeling that they have it in them to be alive and to be going on living, to some to think about eating makes them know that death is always waiting that dying is in them. Mr. Hersland always liked to think about what was good for him in eating, he liked to think about what was good for every one around him in their eating, he liked to buy all kinds of eating, he liked all kinds of thinking about eating, eating was living to him, eating was beginning to him, beginning was all of living in him, always he was interested in changing in having new ideas new ways of eating, eating was living for him, ways of eating were ways of beginning for him, eating was living to him and there are many millions always made just like him, many millions who have always new ways of eating in them, new ways of thinking about eating always inside them, for all of such then eating is living, to them. There are many ways of thinking about eating, some who are always thinking about eating have not in them any love of eating, some who are always thinking about eating love to have eating going on inside them. Some of each of these kinds of men and women and children have it in them to think about what is good for them in eating, some do not have any such feeling in them eating is an end in itself for them, eating is what they need to content them. This is true of some of them who have not in them much love of the real eating going on in them, this is true of some of them who love the eating always going on inside them.
Mr. Hersland had many theories in him, eating was to him a pleasure when it was going on inside him, but to him that was not the important thing for him. The important thing to him in him were ways of knowing what kind of eating was good for him, ways of having in him new ways of beginning, this was important to himself inside him. Eating was not, to himself, eating, for him, it was living, it was theorising and believing, it was new ways of beginning. He loved to have eating going on inside him and then often, before finishing, he would be filled up, to complete him, with impatient feeling and then he would push eating away from him, then he would be changing, then he would find new things good for him, he would find in eating a new beginning.
Many men and many women and some children are always thinking of what is good for them in their eating. For some of these then eating is living for some of these then eating is dying, some find in ways of eating the continuing of living some find in ways of eating putting off a little longer their ending but dying is always inside them, some of these then, the many men and many women and some children who have it in them to be always thinking about eating about what is good in it for them, some of these then have not in them any love of eating, some of them have it in them to be loving the eating going on inside them, Mr. Hersland was such a one but to himself it was never his loving the eating going on inside him that was important to him, it was his theories of eating, his changings, his beginning, new ways of finding ways of eating that were good for him, these were important to him. In Mr. Hersland's ways of eating his children felt it in him that he was often filled up with impatient feeling. They more and more had it in them to know it of him that he loved to have eating going on inside him and more and more they came to know it of him that he, often then, before ending with the eating, would be filled up with impatient feeling and then he would push his eating away from him. It was in Mr. David Hersland's ways of eating, his ways of doctoring, his ways of educating them, his ways of changing, that all three of his children, each one as they felt themselves inside them an individual being apart from others around them, began to feel it in them that the father of them was big in his beginning and soon then he would be full up with impatient feeling. This, the character in him, made a different impression on each one of the three of them and this will come out in them in the slow history of each one of them. The eldest Martha had it in her to be like him in never finishing but she was not then filled up with impatient feeling, she was not strong in a beginning she was not then as big as all the world as her father had it to be inside him. She had it in her in her later living to be often beginning, to be impatient but not to be full up with such feeling, she had it in her to be like him the father of them but she never had it in her to understand him, she had it in her to irritate in him his impatient feeling she had it in her always to be afraid of him but all this will come out later in the history of her as she grew older as she went away from all of them and then came back out of her trouble to him and always she was like him and always she could not understand him, always she could irritate the impatient feeling that he had always inside him then, always she was in a way afraid of the irritation in him that she always gave to him. The elder son Alfred had it in him not to be like his father in always beginning, beginning was not strong in him, there was more of his mother in him but he had it in him to be always in his later living full up with impatient feeling, he had no bigness in him as the father had in his beginnings, there was never any such bigness in him and always then he was full up with impatient feeling. He had it in him to see the bigness in his father in his beginnings and he had in him a great admiration for the big ways his father always had in him, he had never any such bigness inside him, always he felt it in his father and wanted to have it, too, inside him;