The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (31 page)

     There are many ways of family living, there are many ways of being a man to a wife, to his children, and to the servants living in the house with him, of being the wife to her husband in her living, being to her children and to the servants and dependents of her daily living, and then the children and then the servants to all of them. Mr. Hersland had his way of feeling about Mrs. Hersland and that is clear now in his feeling from the beginning to the ending of his middle living and then she died away and left him. In the beginning of his middle living she was a little a joke to him in her resisting and she had a little power in him then for the children, later she a little woman was with weakening inside in her living was lost then among the father and the resisting children, she was a little thing then to them and lost among them and more and more then she was not important to them and then she died away and left them. In her feeling for the servants and governesses and seamstresses in her daily living she had more feeling of herself to herself inside her in her feeling than in any other part of her living. She was with them outside him to her husband then, not very important to him, sometimes with her ways with them then a little a joke to him but mostly she had her own way then and then sometimes in a blustering fashion he let her do her own way while to himself brushing her away from before him. In her living with the servants and governess and seamstress in her daily living she had a feeling of herself to herself inside her, this was more of an individual being in her than ever had been in her when she was leading with her own kind of people around her the right rich living which was the natural way of being to her. She never to herself was cut off from the living that was the natural way of living to her but in her daily living that living did not touch her, she had her daily living with only dependents around her, she was of them and above them and that gave to her her feeling of herself to herself inside her, cut off from the equal living that was the natural way of living for her.
     Her children in their younger living were to her still inside her, later they never gave to her any feeling of being important to herself inside her, more and more they were too large around her, she could suffer but they were not important in her in her feeling of herself inside her.
     Being important to one's self inside one. Being lonesome inside one. Making the world small to one to lose from one the lonesome feeling a big world feeling can make inside any one who has not it in them to feel themselves as big as any world can be around them. Being important inside one in religion can help one loose from one the lonesome feeling a big world can give to one. There are many ways of losing the lonesome feeling a big world around can give to one. Many lose it before they know they have one, many all their lives keep their world small and so they never have in them such a lonesome feeling, some need religion in them to keep them from being lost inside them from having too much in them a lonesome feeling and a big world too big for them around them, some have in them a superior sense that makes the big world around them not strong enough to give then to them a lonesome feeling inside them, some have just a busy feeling in them and that keeps them from lonesome feeling in them, some never have it come to them that there is a big world around them, there are many who never have in them any such lonesome feeling inside them their living fills them they and their family and the people around them, but many in their living find it at some time in them that they have a lonesome feeling in them; almost all men and almost all women, and mostly all of them when they were children, have such a kind of lonesome feeling at some moment in their living.
     The important feeling of one's self to one inside one in one's living is to have in one then not anything of such a lonesome feeling. Sometimes in many women and some men it is not a lonesome feeling it is a weakening in them and somebody then takes care of them, in more women there is what might be a lonesome feeling as a weakening in them and then some one takes care of them or they die away then and so escape their lonesome feeling. Many women have it in them to float off into weakening, to lose themselves in religion and so escape from any lonesome feeling. Many women have it in them to feel that it never can happen to them the last end of trouble for them, they have in them the feeling that the world can never really be too much for them, this in many of them is religion in them, they are not important to themselves inside them, they are part of the important thing and in that they can never have the last end of evil coming to them, there are many women who have in them not an important feeling of themselves to themselves inside them but they have in them the sense that the last end of a bad thing cannot destroy them, some one will take care of them, something will save them, despair can never really fill them, they can never have in them the complete sense of a lonesome feeling in them; it is like the feeling Mrs. Hersland had in her in her feeling that she was never really cut off from good rich right living which was the natural way of being to her, the for her natural way of living.
     Mrs. Hersland had in her different ways of having herself inside her, of having important feeling in her. A feeling of herself inside her would never have come to be in her if she had gone on living in the way that was natural for her. Being important to herself inside her first came to be a little in her from the knowing Sophie Shilling and her sister Pauline Shilling and the mother Mrs. Shilling, later it came to be stronger in her from the living with the governesses and seamstresses and servants and dependents and being with them but above them all the time every moment of her living, not cut off to her feeling but really cut off in her living from the rich living that was for her the natural way of being.
     Many women have in them the way of feeling that makes it for them that the last end of a bad thing cannot come to them, the last end of losing cannot come to them, the last end of trouble cannot destroy them; many of such of them have not it in them to have an important feeling of themselves to themselves inside them, they have a feeling that they are a part of important being and the last end of a bad thing cannot destroy them, despair never can fill them, somehow something some one will then take care of them, the last end of a bad thing can never to the feeling of such ones ever come to really destroy them. Many of such ones have weakening in them and some one then takes care of them or else they die away and they never know it inside them that the last end of a bad thing has destroyed them, to themselves then in dying despair does not fill them, something to the last moment of their living something someone to such of them then in the last moments of their living will take care of them, but they are weakening and they are dead then but they have not had the lonesome feeling, despair has not ever been really inside them. Many have in them such a feeling, many have it in them as a religion. Many women who have never in them a really lonesome feeling have not it in them the thing that keeps it out of them as weakening they have it in them as resisting, they have it in them as superior feeling, they have it in them as going on always in living, as managing everything that can touch them, as being busy every moment with something, despair can never fill such of them, they never have in them a really lonesome feeling.
     There are many ways then for many women not to have in them ever in their living anything of a really lonesome feeling inside them. There are then many ways of not having room in them for such a lonesome feeling, there are many ways of losing it out of them when it is a little in them, there are many ways of having such a lonesome feeling, there are some ways of having such a lonesome feeling always inside in one.
     Mrs. Hersland had in her then in her middle living a real feeling of being important to herself inside her in her feeling. If she had gone on in the living that was the natural way of being for her this never would have come to be real inside her, this would have been in her a real important feeling from the living that was natural to her but never a really important feeling of herself to herself inside her. She always would have had in her a feeling inside her that in her mother came out in the dreary trickling that was, almost all her later living, all that was of her. A little of such a feeling there would have always been in the daughter if she had gone on living the life that was the natural way of living for her but such a feeling would never come to be in her as it never came to be in her mother a feeling of herself to herself inside her, a feeling of herself to herself as important inside her. Some of her sisters and one brother had a little of the important feeling of the father, he had had a being that in any kind of living would have given a feeling of himself to himself as a religion. Mrs. Hersland had not in her any such a thing inside her, she had in her only the feeling that gave to her mother the dreary trickling that made all her, this in the daughter never had in it sadness and sorrow inside her it was in her a gentle pleasant timid sometimes an angry sometimes hurt feeling in her, in the living that was not the natural way of living for her it came to be inside her a feeling of herself to herself as important in her.
     She had then in her, in her middle living it was strongest inside her, a feeling of herself to herself inside her. Once this came to be in her almost a lonesome feeling inside her but it really was not real enough in her, it did not come enough of itself from inside her, it never came to be altogether really a lonesome feeling in her.
     There are very many ways for women to have loving in them, some have loving in them for any one or anything that needs them, some have loving in them from the need in them for some other one or for something they see around them, some have a mixture in them. There are some who have really not any loving in them. The kinds of loving women have in them and the way it comes out from them makes for them the bottom nature in them, makes them their kind of women and there are always many millions made of each kind of them.
     Mrs. Hersland like almost all women had different things in her for loving. For her her children when they were little things around her it was not to her that they had need of her they were to her a part of her as if they were inside her, as they grew bigger and had their individual living in the house with her as they did not then need her to fight out their daily living with their father they did not feel any importance in her, they were for her then no longer a part of her, she had then weakening in her, she was a little thing then and they were so large around her, they were then struggling with themselves and with their living and with their father, she was weakening then and more and more they were not a part of her, she had not loved them because they had need of her, they were a part of her, then they were all struggling around her, she was a little thing then with weakening in her, more and more then they forgot about her, they were all struggling then around her, they were all of them having in them their individual living, they were all big then and she was a little gentle thing and lost among them and then she died away and left them. For her then with her children she was not of them who love those who have need of them nor of those who love any one near them because they have need of them. Some women have it in them to have children as part of them as if they were part of their own body all the time of their living. Such never have in them an important feeling of themselves inside them from the children that have come out of them, some of such of them can have it in them an important feeling from their children as it makes of them a larger thing being all one themselves and their children. Mrs. Hersland was of such of them of those who have in them not any important feeling of themselves inside them from their children. She was of such of them, the important feeling she had in her living came a little from her husband and more from the governesses and servants and dependents living in the house with them. She could not have in her a feeling of herself inside her from the children around her, they were to her like rich right living, they were a natural part of her, they could never give to her a feeling of herself to herself as important inside her. They were to her of her as her family living in Bridgepoint had been of her, important to her because they were her they were never cut off from her as she was never to her cut off from her the way of living that was the natural way of living for her.
     Some women have it in them to love others because they need them, many of such ones subdue the ones they need for loving, they subdue them and they own them; some women have it in them to love only those who need them; some women have it in them only to have power when others love them, others loving them gives to them strength in domination as their needing those who love them keeps them from subduing others before those others love them. This will come clearer when this kind of women comes into this history of many kinds of men and women.
     Mrs. Hersland was not of these two kinds then, she had a gentle little bounty in her, she had a sense in her of superior strength in her from the way of living that was the natural way of being to her, she had a larger being from the children who were always to her a part of her. She had in her a little power from the beauty feeling she had for her husband in his living with her; she was for him then a tender feeling in him, she was for him then a pleasant little joke to him resisting to him, she was to him a woman for his using as she was to herself part of her children, that was the simple sense in her that never gave to her a sense of being important to herself inside her.
     As I said once about her she had it a very little in her to have a very little sense of herself to herself inside her from a little power she felt in her with her husband when he first married her. She had then in her a little resistance of herself inside to him then, she was not yet then a joke to him when she had this little resistance in her, this little resistance of herself in herself in their early living together. More and more then it came to be to him a joke for him, more and more then her resistance to him was not of herself in herself to him, it was for the children and that was not a straight feeling of herself in herself inside her resisting, that was not to herself a resisting, that was getting something from him for the children, this never was in her an important feeling, always up to the last end of her weakening there was a little left over in her of her resisting to him the feeling of herself inside her, that never had anything to do with the children not when they were young and she was resisting so that they could have what she felt they should have in their living not when they were older and doing their own resisting and when they were all big, then, and she was lost among them. She never for her children had inside her any important feeling, she had when managing for a servant or a seamstress or a governess an important feeling, she had when a little resisting to her husband in their early living an important feeling. This little resisting in her in their early living together was the first faint beginning of herself to herself inside her the first beginning in her of herself inside her as an important feeling in her, this never went quite out of her even when she was weakening and had such a feeling very little in her, always it was there as a feeling left over, she always to her dying had it a little in her.