Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein (47 page)

This one that I have been describing had not real suspicious feeling, this one was of the resisting kind of them but this one had very much more sensitiveness than resisting being was in this one not a kind of thing to make of this one really a suspicious one. This being in this one resisting being in this one was in this one a sense of really being gently minute by minute in living and so this one when this one was adding up anything would always be adding it by one and one and one. This one had it to be very careful in living and always this one would be counting everything by one and one and one. Counting everything this one was spending by one and one and one and one and one and one was in this one resisting being was in this one recognition of real existing of everything. This one could have very much injured feeling, this one could have injured feeling very often could have it for herself for other ones for any one and this one sometimes was very mixed up in doing anything by injured feeling for one and not for another one and for that other one then and for this one herself this one inside this one then and this one then was sufficiently complicated by injured feeling inside this one and injured feeling was the only complicated thing in the being and in the living of this one. This one was as I was saying a very gentle a very sensitive one, this one was a resisting one, this one was not at all an engulfing one, this one from the mixing of a little softly resisting being and very much gentle and sensitive being had in this one suspicion only as injured feeling. Some having this kind of being and having sensitiveness not delicately and sensitively in them and resisting slightly engulfing in them are completely suspicious and completely injured always in their living and these very often have it in them to having being persecuted as a
mania in them. There are very many having such being in them, later I will be telling a few little things that sometimes are happening in living in the living of this kind of men this kind of women. As I was saying this one I am now just a little describing was not at all not even a little bit an engulfing one, this one was a softly resisting one a really earthy one really feeling always in living that existing anything existing is really there in being and always this one was doing all the counting this one ever was doing by counting one and then one and then one and then one. This one as I was saying had not really suspicious being, this one as I was saying had much and quite often very warmly really injured feeling, for herself in herself, for some other one, for any other one and this injured feeling was in the being of this one the only complication. Once some one, a young cousin, this one I am describing was then coming to the beginning of the middle living in this one, once a young cousin told this one, the cousin was very fond of this one, that the cousin never wanted to be eating dinner at the house of another one another cousin of this one, that he liked very much indeed being with his cousin but he did not like it at all for a place to be dining, this was then all that was said just then. Later then the first cousin the one that said this to the one I have been describing, asked this cousin who had just come to be engaged to be married then to come and take dinner with him. This one then the cousin asked to dine by the other cousin of the one I am describing happened to mention to the one I am describing that he was going to be dining next week with this cousin. This one I am now describing had then completely inside this one an injured feeling for this one that was going to be dining with the other one that this one should be going to be dining with the other one when the other one would not dine with that one because it was not a pleasant thing and so this one I am describing told the one going to be dining with the other one what that one had said about dining with him. Then of course this one would not dine with the other one. And all this came from there being in this one I am describing a soft resisting, a gentle sensitive being with not any suspiciousness in being and not any engulfing and not any
egotism so that this one had to have in this one that everything that could be aggression or suspicion or worldliness in living or individual feeling was in this one injured feeling, a very little angry and a very much hurt feeling and so this one had injured feeling quite often and very much for this one, for some other one, for any other one.

I will describe now very little a very different kind of one from that one I have been just describing. There will not be then very many more of them of the considerable number left then. There will perhaps then still be left about six of them, six kinds of them and perhaps there will be added a few more to make another generalisation but really there have been already done a considerable part of the considerable number of the resisting kind of them that I am now describing.

This one then is quite a different kind of a one from the last one I was describing. This one as a whole one is like a cannon-ball living on a bag of cotton, the cannon-ball lying on a cotton bag as a complete thing was the whole of this one. This is in a way a description of this one, there will be now a very little more description of this one.

Children are always thinking are very often thinking that their mothers are very lovely looking and that is very often because mostly the child is always close up to the mother close to her when the child is looking and mostly being close like that as a habitual thing is to find that one a lovely thing a lovely looking one.

This one that I was saying was a whole one which was like a cannon-ball resting on a bag of cotton was the cotton part finding the cannon-ball lovely looking being always so close to that thing and the cannon-ball was finding the cotton lovely looking that being so closely always to that thing. To explain then. This one then was one having solid enough dull not very lively, not lively at all fairly dry resisting bottom, a bottom that might have been engulfing if it had been a lively dark wet thing, but this was not true of it then at all that it was engulfing, it was entirely not engulfing. As I was saying many having engulfing being and not having resisting being enough in them are very aspiring and this one then had aspiration like what might have been engulfing in the bottom
being which was not at all engulfing. Some of this kind of them have it as a bottom being something that is more nearly engulfing and these then have more active aspiration as ambition, these have then more nearly some power of very nearly engulfing something but this one was as little engulfing as such a kind of them can be in living, just as amiable and ideal in aspiration and aspiration in this one as I was saying was like the cannon-ball resting on the bag of cotton, it was completely beautiful always to all that cotton and this one was always living near light and beauty near to the aspiration, the cannon-ball and this one was then as I was saying amiable in intention and clear and large worded and hesitating in expression. This one is an interesting enough one. I am knowing quite well three of these of them, one is more nearly engulfing, one has of him the very largest size in bags of cotton, one and this is the one I am realising in now describing was a little skimped in the cotton foundation. This is not a funny description, I was not certain I should say anything of the cannon-ball and the cotton, I was almost certain I would not say anything in this description about the cannon-ball and the cotton, it was not in me a natural way of conceiving any one, some one conceived this one as a cannon-ball resting on a bag of cotton, I used that in my description, this is not to me a natural way of talking, I have been using it here as I am saying. Now I will begin describing another one and that will be leaving only a few more to be describing of the considerable number of them that I have been describing of the resisting kind of them. This one that I am now beginning describing is of the resisting and sensitive and suspicious kind of them and now I will be telling a few stories about such of them.

It is very hard with some to be realising what kind they are this kind of them when they are quite old ones. It is a very difficult thing to be realising of some kinds of them one has been knowing before the beginning of their middle living what they are as old ones, these in living. When one is oneself a fairly old one, one will be knowing a little more perhaps of this thing, one is knowing a little of something of this thing from old relations one is knowing and one knowing all the
family of these then is perhaps a little knowing what these are as younger ones in living. These that I am now describing are a kind of them that when they are old ones no one is paying much attention to them. They have then as old ones the same being in them I am now describing, they are mostly not any too successfully living all their living, they have when they are old ones the same being in them, mostly then not very many then are paying much attention to them then, these when they are old ones in living, these that I am now describing.

These then that I am now describing are a kind of them that have sensitiveness that is complete suspicion in them, these are of the kind of them that are themselves completely important to themselves inside them, they have resistance in them much less than sensitiveness as suspicion in them. Suspicion in these of them comes out of the sensitiveness of them before the sensitiveness in them gives to them inside them really an emotion and so in these in living suspicion is as it were the whole of them, the complete emotion always in them. This sensitiveness in them that is in them a suspicion before it is an emotion in them from anything is always every moment in such of them. That these have it in them that sensitiveness makes for them suspicion before they have from anything a complete emotion is the reason that these mostly are not very successful in living, they are a little successful many of them and when they are older ones or old ones, no one, not any one is paying much attention to them. These then in a way are not really earthy, not really resisting, not at all engulfing, these then in a way are not certain that dead is dead, that things really are existing, these can have superstition and religion and prudence and fear and almost a crazy kind of thinking in them. This is now some stories about some of them.

I feel it and I brood over it and it comes then very simply from me, do you see how simply it comes out of me, you see, I feel it and I think about it and then I know it and I know then it is a simple thing, why are you always saying then it is a complicated one when really it is a very simple one this thing, do you see now it is a very simple thing this thing, do
you see that this is a simple thing like everything why then should you make of it a complicated thing when it is a simple thing, do you see now that it is a simple thing this thing, why do you make everything a complicated thing, do you see, this is a simple thing, everything is a simple thing, you make everything a complicated thing when everything is a simple thing, do you see, it is a simple thing, you say it is a complicated thing, do you see, everything is a simple thing that is certain, do you see, that is certain. Very many are always saying this thing, it is very common, to be certain, to be really certain that some one is really feeling thinking seeing that that one is really feeling thinking seeing what that one really is seeing feeling thinking is certainly a quite rare thing. Mostly then it is a difficult thing, a patient solemn thing to be really certain that any one is really feeling seeing thinking believing what that one in the way that one really is feeling thinking seeing believing is feeling thinking seeing believing anything. These then I am now describing who are completely for themselves suspicious ones, who have it in them to have emotion in them become suspicion before it is a real emotion of anything for anything about anything in them, these have it completely to be certain that every one is doing feeling seeing the thing that one is feeling doing seeing believing when such a one is not agreeing with them, when such a one is feeling thinking believing doing anything that such a one is doing that thing for a mean or wicked or jealous or stupid or obstinate or cursed or religious reason, it is not a real feeling believing seeing realising, that this one having suspicion in him is certain. One of such a kind of one once liked very well some one and then that one forgot to give this one five cents that this one had paid for that one and then this one hated that one, had no trust in that one for this one was certain that that one knowing that this one was too sensitive to be asking did not think it necessary to pay that one, he never could believe that any one forgot such a thing. This is an extreme thing of a way of feeling that is common to all of these of them. Another one once was always certain that some one who one time told him that he would sometime later be successful in teaching meant it that he would not be
successful in painting and that this was because that one was jealous of this one although that one had just met this one. This one was certain that every one sometime would do a mean thing to him and always each one to him sometime did this thing. Once one said to him I hope you will be successful in the city where you are going to earn your living. That means that you think my way of working rotten, you know very well no one making a living there is doing good work to your thinking, it would be a better thing to say what you are thinking straight out, said this one. One of such a kind of them was always asking and always getting and always he was certain that every one was doing the thing they were doing because they wanted to make of him a poor thing and some of such of them are always having difficulty with partners and others and any one and then as I am saying when they are older ones not any one pays very much attention to them. These are some and more or less like them are very many a very great many always living who have it in them that anything to them makes an emotion that is suspicion before it is real emotion in them.

In some connected with them, sensitiveness that in these I have been just describing turns into suspicion before it is sensation or emotion about a person, a thing done, or anything, in these turns into cleverness in them or self-protection in the sense of doing nothing and breaking all engagements and giving up all obligation. In some it turns before it is really a sensation into a sensual passion. This is all very interesting surely to any one really believing really being certain completely certain that different ones are different in kind from other kinds of them are really different in experiencing. This is in a way a very difficult thing to really truly believe in one, that some one really has a completely different kind of a way of feeling a thing from another one. Mostly every one in practical living needs only to be completely realising their own experiencing and then need only to be realising other ones experiencing enough to be using them, the ones experiencing. It is a very difficult thing to really believe it of another one what the other one is really feeling, it is such a very long learning anybody must be having to be really to be actually
believing this thing. I do this thing. I am a rare one, I know this always more in living. I know always more in living that other ones are really believing what they are believing, feeling, what they are feeling, thinking, what they are thinking, always more and more in living I know I am a rare one. There are not very many having this very completely really in them.