The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (28 page)

     There were many different kinds of men that knew Mr. Hersland in his business Jiving and they had many different ways of feeling about the ways he had in him, about his strong beginnings, about his fighting everybody who was not to his feeling in him, about brushing people away from before him when he was going on with his beginning and full up with big feeling. Some as I was saying felt him to be a dangerous man for them, some of these went with him in beginning and then they liked it better to do their own finishing, for them even when he was carrying a beginning through perhaps to an ending the carrying it on by him had for them too much in it of beginning to ever be a comfort to them, some of these then did not fight him they began with him and then they went on in their own way to an ending. He would be then full up with beginning and with fighting, he might be going on too from the same beginning that he had begun together with them, he might be going on too to an ending but with him going on had always in it something of beginning and they left it to him to go on alone with his big feeling. They went on to their own ending. He was strong in fighting but as I was saying he had it in him to turn away in fighting into another direction in a blustering fashion and he never knew it in him that the nature in him would not carry him to the last fighting. He was strong in fighting and he liked it for he felt his strength then in him. He was strong in fighting he was not so strong in winning, more and more then at the ending of his middle living fighting in him turned into impatient feeling inside him, more and more then fighting in him in his late living broke down into weakness inside him. As I was saying he was strong in fighting, he was strong in brushing people away from before him. He would have in him then when he was fighting all the joy of being full up with beginning, he would have then when he was brushing people away from around him all the big feeling of being as big as all the world, inside him. When he was fighting, when he was brushing people away from before him, he was to himself then as if the whole world was in him, he was it, it was in him, there was not any difference then for him of him and all the world around him.
     It was a very joyous thing in him this big feeling, everybody who saw him felt it in him, his children it made uncomfortable when they were out with him. The big feeling in him was not in him a big empty feeling, it was to him to be always strong in fighting, not so strong in winning, sometimes then in a blustering fashion he would go another way out of fighting, to himself then always it was that he was brushing others away from him, he never knew it in him that he went in this way out of fighting till his children told him when in his later living his impatient feeling made them angry with him.
     It was a very joyous thing in him this big feeling in him, everybody who saw him felt it in him. Everybody who had anything to do with him had a very strong feeling in them about this big feeling in him. As I was saying every one of the many millions of this kind of men have it in them to have some time inside them a big feeling, a feeling of themselves inside them as big as all the world around them. In many of the millions of this kind of men such a big feeling is in them only as beginning inside them it never works out to a finish through them. Some of such a kind of men have it in them to work it through to a finish to a complete thing the big feeling that was in them. There have not been many millions of the many millions of the kind of men the kind that have such a kind of big feeling some time in them who work it out to an ending, in some of them it remains in them as beginning and they never lose it out of them and so it is a strong thing always in them, yes some have it in them through all their living to keep a thing in them in beginning it is always big inside them it is always as a beginning in them it never breaks down into weakness in them it never breaks down into new beginnings inside them it never breaks down into impatient feeling in them, it never comes to be swelled out and then empty in them it remains in them as big as the feeling in them of being as big as all the world inside them to their feeling, it remains in them always as a big beginning. Mr. David Hersland in his being had a mixture in him. There was in him all through his living a big beginning that was always in him to the last moment of his living, more and more in his later living it did not fill him, more and more toward the end of his middle living he was filled up with impatient feeling and the big beginning that was always in him to his ending was not important in him to those who then knew him, more and more to everyone then around him there was to him only impatient feeling but always in him to every one who knew him there was even when he was full up with impatient feeling there was always in him a big thing inside him there was in him a big beginning inside him. And this was in him, a big beginning, until the last of his living. Later in his living when he was shrunk away from the outside of him, when he needed women inside him to fill him, when his impatient feeling had broken down into weakness in him there was still spread out inside him a big feeling and that was the beginning always in him, the beginning that always was in him all through his living.
     In his middle living then there were many ways of feeling this mixture in him by every one who then knew him. As I was saying there were many then who felt this big beginning in him and they also felt the danger in him of his strong fighting, fighting that did not carry the beginning in him to an ending, fighting that to his children was impatient feeling, that to some men who fought against him was a blustering turning away from them, that to some other men near him meant a brushing of them away from around him that to some men meant a living thing that they admired in him for it gave to such men a feeling of living inside them, that meant to some women a weakness in him so that they felt it in them that they could manage him by ingratiating diplomatic domineering—mostly in his middle living he brushed these away from around him but they did not lose then the feeling they had in them about him,—that meant to poor people near him a hearty nature in him, that meant to his children in their younger living a thing to make them ashamed when they were walking with him sometimes made them afraid of him and then in his later living made them angry with him and in his latest living made them take care of him, made his wife feel her power with him and sometimes feel she had no importance for him, made him to the governesses and servants in the house with him a man who would not interfere with them for they could not feel a power in him for the feeling in him to them that in his business living made strong fighting in him they saw it in him in the daily living in the house with him they saw that it used itself up without touching the people he was fighting, there was to them no contact in him and so in the household living he did not count for them, it was Mrs. Hersland who was important for them.
     In his business living, among the men who knew him, some were afraid of him, they were mostly not afraid to fight with him they felt it in them that he was strong in fighting and that most of the fighting would hit him, there were many then who were not afraid to fight against him for mostly people felt in him in his middle living that there was no danger in him for people he was fighting, dimly they knew it in them almost every one who then knew him that nothing in him would carry him to any last act against them there was no danger for them then they mostly all of them felt it so then inside them those with whom he was fighting, those whom he was brushing away from around him; those who felt he was a dangerous man to have with them were men who were with him in his big beginnings and they felt in them even when he was going onward from a beginning they felt it in them that his going on had in it too much beginning to make them feel safe with him, so mostly they would then after a big beginning with him go their own way to ending, they would leave him with the big beginning always in him, they would leave him to his strong fighting to his brushing of people away from him to his going another way away from the man in front of him in his blustering fashion that was to himself a brushing away of the people around him.
     He was strong then in beginning, he was strong in fighting, he was always changing, he was very strong in fighting. In his business living this came out in him, it came out in him in all his living, it came out in him in his ways of eating, in his ways of doctoring, in his ways of educating his children. In his business living no one went with him to an ending, always they would somewhere leave him and go on to their own finishing. To the end of his business living he had in him a big beginning, this never broke down into weakness inside him, this never broke down into impatient feeling, he was full then in his later living with impatient feeling and then later with weakness inside him but always in him too was a big beginning and this was in him to his ending. Mostly all the men in business with him went on to their own ending, some later when he was no longer living brought to a finish his big beginning but mostly all of them who were with him in his business living were with him in beginning and then they left him to his fighting, to his brushing people away from around him, to his going away from them in a blustering fashion which was to himself brushing them away from before him. In his younger living when he was working with older men above him he would be brought through them to finish out a beginning he had in him. He was always strong in fighting but then his being strong in beginning with others to bring it to an ending through him made him a big man to all then around him. Later in his living every one mostly left him to his fighting, to his brushing people away from around him to his going another way when as it mostly happened in him the nature in him did not carry him to the last end of fighting.
     As I was saying men working with him in his business living mostly went their own way to an ending of the things they began with him. Mostly to all of them there was danger to them in his way of going on to an ending. There was for them too much of beginning in his way of ending. Those who followed with admiration in them were mostly men who had not enough in them of themselves inside them to begin a big thing with him, they were outside him they were outside his business living, they were full of admiration for him, they felt in them part of the big feeling of being as big as all the world around them when they were with him. These men were to him like the people in the small houses near him, in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living, except that they came closer to him, they were not important to him they were not inside him for him but they were a comfort to him, they liked to know he had been fighting, they liked to know he had been brushing people away from around him, they were always there for him, they were not inside him to him, they were not important to him to his feeling, but they made a kind of support around him when he was resting up from fighting, they made a kind of cushion for him to keep him from knowing when he was through with fighting that he had not been winning. They were beginning to be important to him at the beginning of the ending of his middle living, earlier in his living they were all to him as the people in the small houses near him, in his country house living, he was hearty for them, he was a good neighbor to any one, he was good to do things for any one of them who asked him to do things for them. Some of them in the beginning of the ending of his middle living were more and more important to him as padding, not to fill him but to keep him from knowing it in himself that he was not strong in winning that the nature in him would not carry him to the last end of fighting which is winning, that when he turned away in a blustering fashion he was not brushing people away from him. He never knew it inside him that he was not brushing people away from around him when he went away from them in another direction in a blustering fashion until his children in his later living when they were angry with him for his impatient feeling said it to him. These men then in the beginning of the ending of his middle living were beginning to be important to him, they were then a padding, to him not inside him but around him. These men, some of them then, came to be in him a little like a tender feeling then when his wife was no longer in him as a tender feeling, they knew it always of him that he had a big beginning in him—that this was in him even when he was full up with impatient feeling—when later he was shrunk away from the outside of him, they always knew him to be strong in fighting and this in him made a strong living feeling always inside them to know him. In the beginning of the ending of his middle living some of such men were a little important to him.
     As I was saying his children knew it sooner of him than the business men around him that he was full up with impatient feeling that the fighting in him would break down into impatient feeling, they knew it sooner about him than the business men around him that the anger in him would not carry him to any last act against them. His wife as I was saying knew it in her feeling sooner than the business men around him sooner than his children how far the nature in him would carry him, knew it sooner in her feeling how she could manage him, knew it in her feeling how in a way she was not important to him though this last never came to be a conscious feeling till at the ending of his middle living. The governess and servants in the house with him, as I was saying, liked him then in his middle living for his hearty laughing and the big ways he had of buying but they never felt in contact with him, his wife and his children were more real to all of them, this was true of all of them the servants and the governesses as they lived in the house with them, there was less of such a feeling in the governess Madeleine Wyman who was the governess they had with them in the beginning of the ending of Mr. Hersland's middle living, in the time when Mrs. Hersland had inside her the most important feeling of herself to herself in her feeling.
     Mr. David Hersland then in his home living had always new ideas about ways of eating, ways of doctoring, ways of educating children, sometimes in a stubborn way he would go on a long time with some one way of them but this was mostly well at the end of his middle living, when his wife was not any longer strong in him, when she was no longer a tender feeling in him, when she was not any longer important to him. His wife had sooner in her than any one that knew him a feeling of how far the nature in him would carry him. She knew this in her from living with him as a wife to him, from the simple repeating that a man has in him for the woman who is a wife to him. He never felt it in him as a judgment of him this feeling that made her know about him how far the nature in him would carry him, she was to him never a thing outside him excepting when she was a kind of joke to him, she was always to him inside him, she never had for him any importance for him in her being outside of him, in such a part of her being she was either a joke to him or she was not important to him or he brushed her away from around him. The men around him in his business living never made him feel in him how far the nature in him would carry him, to himself with them he was strong in fighting with them or against them or he was brushing them away from around him or they were not important to him. The governesses and servants and the for him poor people near him were never important to him excepting perhaps in his later living when he was shrunk away from the outside of him and he needed a woman inside to fill him and this was beginning a little in him in the beginning of the ending of his middle living, or else when there were some of them in him a little in his later living as a tender feeling as earlier his wife had been in him to him, or as they were in the beginning of the ending of his middle living important as a padding to him. So he never knew it in him how far the nature in him could carry him, how he could not come to the last end of fighting, he never knew it inside him that he was not brushing people away from around him when he went away from them in another direction in a blustering fashion until his children in his later living when they were angry with him for his impatient feeling said it to him. His children were for him not so completely outside him as business men around him, they were not in him as his wife was in him and as later some women and some men were in him, they were not of no importance to him inside him as some men and some women and the governesses and servants and people living near him were to him, they were outside him, they could get at him, in his later living when they were angry with him because of his being full up then with impatient feeling they told him what they thought of him, they made him feel it then inside him and this was all in the ending of his middle living.