THE MAKING OF AMERICANS (Family Saga). Gertrude Stein
had been in her and never would be in most of her own family who had gone on with the natural way of living for them. She did not know she had had an important feeling of herself inside her arise in her from being cut off from the natural way of living for her, from knowing the Shilling family and then from having later around her only, for her, poor queer kind of people, and governesses and servants and seamstresses and dependents there in the house with her.
She never really knew it in her that she was not really important to the man who was a husband to her. She never really knew it in her that she was not important to the children who had been once in her. In her later life when she was weak and breaking down inside her she felt it a little dimly in her, now she did not have any such feeling, she had a feeling of herself inside her, she had around her a governess and servants and a seamstress and dependents, she had her husband and her three children. She never knew it in her husband that she was always less and less important to him, she never knew it then that her children were then coming to be more entirely of them, the poorer people who lived in the small houses near them, than they were of their mother then, than their mother was of them then, though to her feeling then they were almost all there was then of her daily living. She never knew it that to the feeling in her of herself inside her her husband and her children were not important to her, they were of her as if they were in her a part of her, they were not important to her in the feeling of herself inside her that had come now to begin to be really in her.
Real country living feeling all three of the Hersland children in their younger living had inside them, a real country living feeling. This they had in them in the ten acre place with the hired men working and the chickens and ducks and fruit-trees and haymaking and seed-sewing and cows and some vegetable gardening. It was to them in their feeling real country living, it was to them earning a living in the hard country way and it was so that they then felt it inside them.
The three children had in many ways then in them the feeling of real country living. Their mother never had this feeling, with her it was always country house city living. In the children it was sometimes a real country living feeling that they had in them, and they were then very really a part of the life around them, of country ways of making a living, of cows and chickens and fruit-trees and hunting, and it was for them then in their younger living not country house city living, it was for them then real country living and country feeling and village life around them and hard-working country ways of earning a living.
The people in the small houses near them had all of them a half and half feeling, a half country and a half city feeling in them.
The three Hersland children had in them a country house city feeling only in their mother's feeling and with the governess and servants and dependents living there in the house with them. As it was true then of all three of them that they were more then of the poorer people around them than they were of their mother's living then, so it was true of the three of them that they had more in them the country feeling of the people around them than they had of the half city feeling that these people had in them. All of the Hersland children had a little too of the half city feeling that the people around them had in them. The country feeling and the city feeling the Hersland children had in them in their being part of the life around them was different than any feeling their mother and the servants and governesses and dependents living in the house with them ever had in any of them. Their father had a feeling more like that in them then, with him it was from his being as big as all the world around him, everything was in him, he had all of it somehow someway a little in him, city feeling, country feeling, and city country house feeling, inside him.
With the people living in the small houses near them Mr. Hersland mostly had in him city country house living, he was important to all of them, the only rich man in that part of Gossols where they were living. He was important to them then, the rich man, and they did not then know him any more than as his children then knew him. He was a pleasant enough useful enough man for them to have living in the big place near them. The queer ways in him never made them think much about him. They knew then more of the daily living of Mrs. Hersland and the children. The men in most of the little houses near the ten acre place mostly, like Mr. Hersland, only came to their houses for eating, for sleeping and for Sunday resting. He did the same, only he was a rich man, a pleasant man enough to them, a useful man enough when they would have any need of him. They never thought much about the queer ways he sometimes had in him, they never had then for him anything in the way of a personal feeling.
He was then for them a city country house person. He had it in him to feel other things inside him, sometimes to feel in him a real country living feeling, sometimes he brushed it all away from him, the country feeling, the city country house feeling living, he was then inside him a city man with city schemes and troubles and men around him, and then he walked up and down and his impatient feeling was irritable inside him and he would be muttering and talking to himself and jingling the money in his pockets then and more and more it came to be true of him that he walked up and down thinking, to himself inside him working, scheming, brushing men away from around him, domineering over them, going another way not knowing inside him that he was leaving them because they were then too many for him.
More and more then in their later living in the ten acre place in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living there was for him no reality to country living, to city country house living. There was to him then in his later living more reality in the people living then around him, but this will come out in the history of him as each of his children get to know it then about him. For the children it was in the beginning really country living, for the mother it was always rich city country house living. For the people around them in Mrs. Hersland then it was rich city country house living, in Mr. Hersland city being, in the three Hersland children each one a mixed thing in them of the three ways of feeling, rich city country house being country being and city being, and the mixtures of these three feelings in each one of the three of them to the people in the small houses near them is part of the history of each one of the three of them.
Each one of them had something in them then of real country feeling. In some one of them it was the fruit-trees, in some one the vegetable gardening, in some the cows, in some the chickens, in some the selling things from the place, in some the men working, in some ways in all three of them there was then something of real country living feeling, something of country life earning of a living. They all three had it in them to have something of such country feeling. They got it in many ways, in hay-making, hay cutting, helping the men working, eating bread and vegetables, fruit as they were picking it, they got it from milking, and butter and cheese making, they got it from the seasons and the things they did to help things growing, they got it in every way around them, they got it in helping ploughing, in helping cut grass, and make the hay into bales for winter storing, they got it from playing Indians and having the darkness come around them, they got it from eating grass and leaves and having the taste in their mouths to bring back such things to them in their later living, they got it in every kind of a way then. They got it from the feeling of the wind around them, when they shouted with it around them, when they crouched down somewhere with it cut off from them, when they helped the men sowing seed with it blowing around them, and when the trees hit their own wood and made that queer sound that they got to have inside them. One can only get the real feeling of wind blowing in the country, in country living. Rain beating, and mud and snow and other ways of feeling the world outside them they can have in city country house living. Strong wind blowing needs real country living to give it a right feeling and this they all three of them each in their own way had then inside them. It was a very different way that each one of them had it in them, a different way too that their mother had it in her, that their father had it in him.
Real country living feeling all three of the Hersland children in their younger living had inside them, a real country living feeling. It was to them then in their feeling real country living, it was to them then earning a living in the country way. It was so that they then felt it inside them. In their later living it was different in each one of them. In Martha this being part of the country village living was not in her later living inside her to her feeling but it was inside her in her being. In Alfred there was in his later living nothing of this in him, not in his being not in his feeling; he was of his mother then, the feeling she had had in her was what was in him then, the being important to himself inside her, the having in her