Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein. Gertrude Stein

A LONG GAY BOOK

       Table of Contents

      When they are very little just only a baby you can never tell which one is to be a lady.

      There are some when they feel it inside them that it has been with them that there was once so very little of them, that they were a baby, helpless and no conscious feeling in them, that they knew nothing then when they were kissed and dandled and fixed by others who knew them when they could know nothing inside them or around them, some get from all this that once surely happened to them to that which was then every bit that was then them, there are some when they feel it later inside them that they were such once and that was all that there was then of them, there are some who have from such a knowing an uncertain curious kind of feeling in them that their having been so little once and knowing nothing makes it all a broken world for them that they have inside them, kills for them the everlasting feeling; and they spend their life in many ways, and always they are trying to make for themselves a new everlasting feeling.

      One way perhaps of winning is to make a little one to come through them, little like the baby that once was all them and lost them their everlasting feeling. Some can win from just the feeling, the little one need not come, to give it to them.

      And so always there is beginning and to some then a losing of the everlasting feeling. Then they make a baby to make for themselves a new beginning and so win for themselves a new everlasting feeling.

      It is never very much to be a baby, to be such a very little thing and knowing nothing. It certainly is a very little thing and almost nothing to be a baby and without a conscious feeling. It is nothing, to be, without anything to know inside them or around them, just a baby and that was all there was once of them and so it is a broken world around them when they think of this beginning and then they lose their everlasting feeling.

      Then they make a baby or they have the feeling and so they win what once a baby lost them.

      It is not very much to be a baby. It certainly is nothing just to be one, to be without a conscious feeling. It is something to have a baby come into the world by way of them but it certainly is not very much to have been the little thing that was once all them.

      It is something to have a baby come into the world through them. It is nothing just to be one.

      First then they make a baby. No it is never very much just to be a baby. Later in life when one is proud as a man or as a lady it is not right that they ever could have dandled and kissed and fixed them, helpless, just a baby. Such ones never can want to feel themselves ever to have been a baby.

      No it is not very much to be a baby. It is not right to one to begin them until a little they can resist to them who would hold them helpless, kiss and dandle and fix them as they were then, such a very little thing, just nothing inside to them. I say it is not right to many of them then to begin them, but it is not all of them who would resist them. There are some who do not feel it to be bad inside them to have been a baby without any conscious feeling of themselves inside them, to have been a little thing and that was all there was then of them, they are some who have not any proud kind of feeling in them.

      They are some who like it in their later living that they were then such a very little thing and that was then all there was of them and then others kissed and dandled and fixed them. They are those who are within them weak or tender as the strongest thing inside them and to them it is very much to have been a baby and to have had others to feel gently toward them, who kissed and dandled and fixed the helpless bundle they were then. With them being proud is not strong inside them.

      Some, and we can know them, have a curious uncertain kind of feeling when they think of themselves as they were then and some so lose the feeling of continuous life inside them.

      It is a very different feeling each kind of man and woman has inside in them about the baby the very little thing that was once all them, and the little thing that comes into the world by them, and the very little things that all about fill the world every moment with beginning.

      There are many kinds of men and many kinds of women and each kind of them have a different feeling in them about the baby that was once all them. There are many kinds of men and many kinds of women and there are many millions made of each kind of them. Each one of the many millions of each kind of them have it in them a little to be different from all the other millions of their kind of them, but all of each kind of them have it in them to have the same kind of feeling about the little thing that was once all them, about the little things that come to a beginning through them, about the little things beginning all around them. There are many kinds of men and many kinds of women and this will be a history of all the kinds of them and of pairs of them.

      As I was saying every man and every woman was a little baby once and knowing nothing. I am saying there are many ways of feeling it inside them in the many kinds of men and women that they were little things once then and that was then all there was of them and they were dandled and fixed and kissed then, little things then and knowing nothing.

      I am saying that there are many kinds of men and women and many millions made of each kind of them. Each one of the many millions of them has it in him to be different from all the millions