The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (69 page)

     Each one has in him, has in her their own kind of being, each one has in him, has in her that kind of being stronger in some parts than in other parts of them, some have it in them drier, wetter, stronger, weaker, the kind of being that is their kind of being in them.
     More and more I would like to make it clear to some one how I see men and women, how I see kinds in men and women. I know a good deal of it now though always I am puzzling, beginning again and again and again, feeling it all is fabrication and always I am knowing that really I see a very certain thing in my way of seeing kinds in men and women, that I am really understanding the meaning of the being in them. I know a great deal then and I tell it now when I am still puzzling.
     This is a hard thing I am now beginning explaining, it is a fairly clear thing now to me, it is not all clear yet to me, I tell it now when now I am still having a good deal of puzzling thinking in my learning understanding.
     There was one then and he was very puzzling. This one was to me a very long time very baffling. This one seemed all of one kind of being, this one seemed a whole being to me always and always I was not understanding. This one had been and was really something in living, this one had done important working, this one was a whole one and yet this one was not a whole one and yet surely there was in this one only one kind of being, it was very puzzling.
     Say these ten then, they each one have in them some way, somehow, in some part of them a being common to all of them. Each one of them has his or her own being, each one of them is separate and resembling. Each one of them have a kind of being in them, some of them have several kinds of being mixed up in them, all of them have one certain kind of being in them, some of them have only that one kind of being in them. The one I am now thinking of describing was one of such of them, this one then had one kind of being and this was clear and yet this one was a contradiction inside him, this one was for a long time very baffling. This one is now fairly clear to my understanding, I am describing this one now when I am still a little puzzling over this one.
     I know for fairly certain now something of the meaning of the being in this one and I am now beginning the telling of the meaning of the being in this one though now still I am a little puzzling over understanding this one.
     As I was saying, take one kind of being, say ten men and women have this kind of being, some of these ten have other kinds of being mixed up in them but that is not what I am now discussing.
     As I was saying, take ten men and women having in them a kind of being in them, not a general kind of resemblance between them but a pretty close resemblance between them, this is now a pretty small subdivision of men and women, of course there are many millions always living of this kind of them but say I have in all my living known ten of them, that is now a subdivision, a particular kind of them that have each one of them a kind of being in them that is very definite in its character in each one of them giving to each one of them a very definite way of learning, loving, fighting, escaping, having stupid being in them, having moral or unmoral or immoral meanings in them.
     This then now is clear, this is a definite kind of being, this being in some way in all of these ten men and women. This kind of them is one subdivision of attacking being. This kind of them have it in them to mostly succeed fairly well in living, some of course are failing, some of every kind of being are succeeding and some are failing but some of kinds of men and women have it to have more of them succeeding than failing, some kinds of them have more of them failing than succeeding, some kinds of them have it to be divided about even in succeeding and failing in living.
     This kind of being then that all these ten have in them is a kind of attacking being. In these attacking is mostly not very active in them, loving in them is attacking being and most of them have it to have loving strongly in them but in most of them loving being in them is overflowing into nervous being in them, this nervous being in them is not energy in them as it is in some where loving is nervous being, in these of them nervous being is an excess in them, they have much passion in them, it is active in them, it is nervous being in them, nervous being in them is not active loving or attacking being in them. This is very clear in them to any one knowing them, every one mostly who knows a fair number of men and women knows certainly some of them, sometime some one perhaps will know the kind of men and women I am now trying describing. It is very discouraging, I begin again.
     This kind of them then has not attacking as very active in them, mostly they have in them much loving but there is in it so much nervous being draining them, not entering into the active being in them that many of them are not really active in loving. This kind of them, the kind of being these ten have in common is very clear to me from knowing these ten of them, I will now begin again to try to describe them.
     These then as I was saying, those having this being in them are of the attacking kind in men and women, they most of them succeed very well in living, most of them have very considerable loving being in them, most of them have much nervous being in them. The nervous being not being energy in them gives to many of them the appearance of there being much repression in them, this is not as true of them as it seems from the nervous being always showing. The repression is an interpretation others have of them for this kind of nervous being that these have in them that is not energy in them is something like the nervous being that is generated in some men and women whose nervous being is energy in them, from repression.

     All of them have this same kind of nervous being in them then, all of them of whom I have been speaking, these ten of them. Some have it more, some have it less in them, all of them have it in them and it is not energy in them, it is not from repression in them, it is part of their kind of being, those who have attacking being but not much attacking action in them, a considerable capacity for succeeding, a considerable capacity for loving. It is very important to know then that in this kind of them nervous being is not energy of action, not a result of suppressing themselves in their loving or their living.
     Mostly this kind of men and women have it in them to have more loving, nervous being, intelligence, success in living, than activity in attacking, emotion and feeling and enthusiasm. These then have mostly much common sense but these have not much practical sense in living. All this is very interesting and so now I must begin again.
     These ten of them have in them the same kind of being. There will be now some more description of the being in them. This last that I have been saying about the practical sense in them is not very well expressed yet and so now I will try again.
     This kind of being is as I was saying an attacking being with not very much attacking fighting in them, these have in them mostly the quality of succeeding well enough in living, they are opportunists in living and they have moral conviction. Let me begin again then, I will begin again to explain the being in them.
     As I was saying earlier those having attacking being have it in them to have in them a strong sense of the meaning, the emotion, the use of the facts every one knows in living. Those having in them resisting being have stronger in them a realisation of the thing itself that makes the fact rather than the sense of the meaning of the thing, the use of it. The resisting kind can love money and living not for the use, emotion, meaning, but for the thing itself as a thing existing. Sometime I will make this clearer but this must do now as a beginning.
     This kind then that I am now describing have as I was saying attacking being but not much activity in attacking, they have sense for facts as attacking being have them but they have not much instinctive emotion about them or sense of the use of them, they have in short no dramatic sense for facts in living but being of the attacking kind of being these have a sense for the meaning of facts in being and so it comes that this kind of them are opportunistic, highly rationalising, unimaginative, having no instinct for meaning in anything but regarding only the meaning and the use in things, having no instinct for quality in people but wanting completely to understand and use them.
     I will take for more understanding of them the moral sense in them. Say one of such of them being as is true of most of them strongly wanting success in living, such a one knows then that honesty is the best policy for him. This one then will completely realise the meaning in this saying, to him it is wisdom, as the way necessary for him to be acting to be succeeding. So far it is opportunism in him, the embracing of this conviction that honesty is the test policy for him. This then is the meaning to him in honest living, and then such a one embraces this as a moral principle, such a one then holds to this if it means ruin to him, such a one has rationally and opportunistically embraced this way of being, this one then makes of this an absolute conviction, a complete moral principle for living, this one then has no sense for opportunistically adapting himself in detail in living, such a one has no practical dramatic sense for living, such a one has attacking being but no activity in attacking, such a one has embraced a creed from the sense of succeeding, of rational opportunism, it is then a moral conviction in this one, this one then has no imagination for facts or people but this one can build a complete system for living and if such a one has a good head on him, such a one is mostly successful enough in living. Herbert Spencer was such a kind of one.
     These then, these ten of them have it to have in common a kind of being that is of the attacking kind of being but these have not much activity of attacking in them, many of these are successful enough in living, mostly these have pretty strongly loving being in them, these have mostly strongly nervousness in them and this nervousness is not part of energy in them, it is not energy in them and that is the reason there is very little attacking being in them, it is something like that kind of nervousness that comes from repression in some men and women but mostly repression is not in this kind of them, mostly these are opportunists at the bottom of them though they all of them mostly at some time make of some principle a rationally constructed system and then make of that system a moral conviction, and so these of them are a curious spectacle of opportunism, rationalising passion, moral conviction, nervousness, much love, emotion.
     Mind then in all of this land in men and women is highly rationalising, mostly these have not much instinct for being in things and in men and women. What these realise as being in things and in men and women is mostly true and alright for a beginning for living but these then do not react to it in living, these rationalise it and from that they come to a principle in living that from then on all their life guides them. These have not then a capacity for growing from experiencing for they have made their conviction from their early realising and then it is in them a principle of living, mostly in all of them this original realisation in them is a fairly intelligent rationalised opportunism.
     Perhaps this is clear now to some one. It is certainly a clear thing for some one to be understanding, this is certainly a clear thing in this kind of men and women.
     These have then mostly quick clear minds but the results of their thinking are not quick in coming as they are all of them complicatedly rationalising, some of them think they have slow minds but this is not true of them, they have the quick minds and quick impressions of the attacking kind of being, but their minds being so rationalising it takes them some time to complete the whole thing, their mind begins with each thing and they think they are slow in taking impressions because mostly they are closed to impressions from anything as their mind when it is formulating is occupying the whole of them and until their mind opens them again they are closed to impressions and so as I was saying these mostly have little power of experiencing.
     Now all this leads to very complicated things in each one having in them such a being, those having good minds, better minds than capacity for experiencing, such can have some principle of growth in them, for their minds can keep them open to all impressions they are capable of receiving and can make the most use of those impressions that they have received inside them. Those having mind only about as strong as the power of receiving impressions in them, such of them just keep going, they are fairly successful in living some of them, there is not much growth in them. There are some of them who have finer power of receiving impressions than quality of mind to direct them and these then more and more are stultified in their living by running themselves by their minds as all of those having this kind of being always do run themselves. This is now a description of learning the last kind of one as a whole one. This then is now a description of one of them, one of these ten of them.
     This one for many years was baffling to me. It was evident that all the being in this one always was repeating to every one's hearing, it was evident that in this one there was not a mixture of many kinds of being and yet this one was baffling, this one had strange contradictions in him. This one said of himself that he had a slow-working mind, this one had to himself and to every one a moral passion for goodness in him, this one was to every one generous and disinterested in thinking and in being, this one was an opportunist in living, this one had very fine sensibilities to beauty and to luxury in living, this one very often was not open to any such impression, this one had a passion for being loving, this one had not any really passionate loving in him, this one had a fixed scheme of living for grace and beauty and had no grace in him and no power of creating beauty in the conditions of living around him, this one had much ambition and was very successful in living, this one then was baffling and for a long long time I was puzzling and puzzling and now this one is a clear one to me.
     Each one, as I was saying, having a kind of being in them has that being in them in different intensities, proportions, they have in them too most of them different kinds of beings mixed up in them but that is not what I am now considering. Each one then of these ten of them of this kind of them that I have been describing, all of these ten of them then that I have known in living has it in them to have this nature in them the kind of nature that is common to all these ten, in different proportions, different intensities, different relation of one part to the other part of the nature and so each one of them had their own being in them, each one was separate, each one was resembling to the others of them. Some of them have other natures too in them that make the things I have been describing, acting differently in them, some of them had this being that I have been describing as a bottom nature to them, others have it as a nature mixed up with another kind of nature in them, one of them had it as the whole being in him, and this one I am now beginning to describe my learning as a whole one.