The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (70 page)

     Each one sometime is a whole one to me, each one sometime is a whole one in me, this one for a long time was baffling, this one now is a whole one to me, this one now I am again beginning describing learning.
     Each one having the kind of being in them that I have been just describing has in her or in him more or less of all the things, all the things in him or in her, I have been describing. Each one of these then has more or less opportunism in their feeling about living, each one of them has loving being that is of the attacking kind but not active in attacking, often very desiring, sometimes appearing engulfing, sometimes never coming into the relation of loving. Each one of this kind of them have a mind that is slow only because it takes much time in going through many logical processes to a conclusion, not slow in actual action, not slow in developing, mostly all of this kind of men and women are quite the same in ways of thinking, learning, understanding, quite from their beginning, there is then in the minds of this kind of men not much developing. Each one of them or this kind in men and women has more or less in them the way of making of whatever was the beginning of their living and the conclusions from this beginning a principle that in some is like a firm moral resolution. In all of this kind of them this acting of the mind in them cuts them off from experiencing, they are of the attacking kind in men and women, things are important to them as use, emotion, passion gives them meaning but these have not any of them activity in attacking being and so they have not imagination or dramatic sense of meaning in them, they have not a spontaneous relation to things in living, in some way in each one of them it, the experience, must go through their more or less rationalising mind before reaction acting to the fact is in them and so then they are not often getting into trouble but most of their living they are not experiencing. This is strange in them when they have strongly in them a love of beauty and luxury in them and this will be soon the history of one of such of them. In all of them then all these ten who have it to have this being in common in them, in all of them there is more or less actively in them all these things I have been describing, mostly in each one there is enough more of one part than another part of this being in them to make the meaning of their being a fairly clear thing in them, to make their living and their being have a fairly clear meaning, in some of these ten there are other natures in them, in some other nature as bottom being in them but that we are not just now considering. As I was saying many having a being in them have the balance of that being in them so kept that one kind of living, one kind of existing is natural to them and has meaning, this was true then of most of these ten of whom I have been talking, it was not true of all of them.
     In one the one I am now beginning describing, the one who was a long time baffling to me, all these things I have been describing as the being of this one kind of being were equally strongly in him, all these things then, all of them were equally strongly repeating in him all through his living and so this one was baffling, for mostly in every one all the qualities in a kind of being are not equally active in them. This made this one baffling. This made this one puzzling for this one had profound impression by beauty and this was complete and poignant and quick in him and he had the rationalising mind acting on each piece of impression and shutting him off from getting deep and poignant and complete impressions from things before him and so he was puzzling, he had opportunism so strongly in him that each time he was open to a new relation with anything in life or a man or a woman he acted in this way toward them and also he had created for himself a whole rationalised scheme of living of beauty and goodness and fairness to every one because that was the way to make the living that would be successful and beautiful, to him. Always to himself he was always open to feeling beauty and goodness and nobility in living, always to himself he had made a scheme of complete living in luxury and success and winning admiration, always to himself he could completely understand everything with his mind which was to himself a great thing in him, never was he ever knowing that his running himself by his mind which was making always for him his theory of beauty and goodness and luxury was closing him to impressions of beauty and luxury and learning. This he never knew in him. He did not know his kind of a mind had never any relation to experience excepting as a beginning, when his mind was working he was shut off from experiencing, such being the way a mind works in this kind of being, and so this one was baffling, no one would ever expect one person, one man or one woman, would have in the completest form all the parts of a kind of being and so this one was baffling, there was complete contradiction in him and yet he was all of one kind of being, this one then was baffling and for a long time this one was not a whole one to me and then I understood the meaning in him, he had it in him all the qualities of this kind of being that was in any of these ten that I have said all had in them this kind of being.
     This is very clear to me now. Now I am not any longer puzzling about this one. This is not very clear yet in my telling. This will be clearer when I have told of the loving being in this one.
     There are many ways of having loving feeling, this one that I am now describing had loving feeling in every kind of way any one having the kind of being common to these ten could have it in her or in him.
     Each kind of being has then its own way of loving, of having loving feeling, of having it and having it to themselves as themselves acting in it. This one, the one I am now describing had it in every way this one's kind of being can have it.
     Those having this kind of being have as I was saying much nervous being that is not energy in them as attacking being, as loving, though it is very much like repressed active being or repressed loving being, but it is not that in them. This so far is clear to me. I am telling all this now, now when it is still a little a puzzle to me.
     So then this one had all the ways of having loving being this kind of them can have it in them. Mostly this kind in men and women have a good deal of loving being in them, though in many of them it does not in them come to loving any man or any woman for as I was saying attacking being is not active in them, and in many of them loving being is just there in them, being there in them as nervous being is in them which is not attacking energy in them. Generally then in this kind of them although there is much loving being in them it does not express itself in loving any particular one until some particular one having very strongly being in them enormously stimulating these makes the loving being in them active to loving that one. It is not, and this is very important to know in them and to remember of them to understand this kind of them, it is not that loving being is not awakened in them, it is very lively in most of this kind of them in every moment of the living of this kind of them, there is not restraint in this kind of them, it is that this kind of them are of the attacking kind in men and women and attacking activity is not active in them. This is now clear in them in the loving in them, in the thinking in them, in the practical living in them. It is clear to me now of them. I am not now any longer in a puzzle about them. Perhaps sometime it will be clear to some other one from the description I have been giving of them.
     So then that is loving women in them, loving men in them, but this is not the only loving feeling in them. These have in them another kind of loving feeling in them, affection for goodness and beauty and nobility in everything and in men and in women and an affection for the feeling of being able to feel inside them loving for luxury and extravagance and sinning. I am now describing this in them now when it is still a little a puzzle to me. Perhaps it will be clearer to me. Now I will tell it as clearly as I know it. I will tell it, a little confusing it as I tell it, for it is so that I now know it. Sometime I will know more of it. Then I will certainly tell more of it.
     They have then this kind of them, they have much affectionate being in them, not emotional affection in them but affection like the kind of thinking being there is in them, to making of something they were experiencing as important to them a principle in them to be always in them. Sometimes this is affection for some one, some kind of thing, for goodness, nobility and virtue and beauty and luxury and sinning and succeeding in living by doing anything. In such a one then one of this kind of them affection that is like a moral principle in them can be for any or some or all of these things that I have been naming, and then it is with these then as in their living as I have described it in them, affection for any of these things is a constant thing in them as constant as the ruling principle they embrace with their minds for living after having rationalised it from some experiencing.
     So then these ten of this kind of them all have in them the kind of loving being this kind of them have as their natural way of being. They have, most of them, very much loving being, but they have not attacking as active in them though they are of the attacking kind of being and so all of them to get it as attacking in them the loving being in them have to have strongly stimulation. Mostly all of them have much loving being always in them and mostly always every one who ever knows any one of them knows this in them but mostly always as I was saying they need very strong stimulation in the being in the other one to make it an attacking thing in them. It is not repressed in them, it is not dormant in them, it is there as evident in them to every one who knows any one of them as is the nervous being in them that is not attacking energy in them. They have then all of them, some more some less in them, but mostly all of this kind of them a good deal of such kind of loving being in them. They have in them much affection in them mostly all of them and this is in them like the thinking being in them like the rationalising some experience they have chosen and then made into a conviction like a moral principle. These then do this with a feeling for any one, with a feeling for anything, any feeling that has convinced them, they make this then, this kind of them into a conviction and they are not often getting for this new experiencing, just as they are not in working and thinking in relation to experience, as a continuous thing in living. This is clear then to some one, it is clear now to me and now I tell it, knowing it now to clearly understand it.
     The one of the ten of them that I have been describing had all these kinds of ways of having loving feeling strongly in him in his living and so this one was perplexing.
     Now I will finish up this one. Now I will tell of my learning this one of this one coming to be a whole one to me.
     This one was for a long time baffling to me. I was telling every one of this one when this one was still a very baffling one to me. Now this one is mostly all clear to me inside me. This one is now a whole one to me. This is the way I learned this one so that this one was a whole one to me.
     As I was saying every one always is repeating the whole of them. As I was saying sometimes it takes many years of hearing the repeating in one before the whole being is clear to the understanding of one who has it as being to love repeating, to know that always every one is repeating the whole of them, to have it that sometime each one is a whole one to that one. This then the way I am now describing learning this one, this then is one of the ways then that such a one, one who has it as being to love repeating, to know that always every one is repeating the whole of them, comes to a completed understanding of every one.
     This then is now a little a description of the way I learned this one so that this one is a whole one to me.
     Now I will finish up this one. Now I will tell of my learning this one, of this one coming to be a whole one inside me.
     This one was a long time perplexing to me because this one was very evidently made up of only one kind of being and yet always there were absolute contradictions in his being. There is a kind of being say in ten men, each one of these ten have the kind of being that is common to all the ten of them in him as being more emphasized in one direction than in the other direction. For instance in this kind of being that I have been just describing one of these ten will have the being in him so that there is in him much more strongly affection for succeeding in living than for other things in him, another will have the being in him so that the loving women is most strongly in him, some one will have the being in him so that rationalising, logical thinking will be the strongest thing in him, some of them will have the being in them so that in each one of them the having the thing they have made a moral conviction as moral conviction to perhaps almost fanaticism as the strongest thing in her or in him, this may be in one of these as a conviction of denying, of skepticism, of opportunism, of socialism, of monarchism, of irreligion, of anything. There are some then of this kind of them that have the power of experiencing strong affection for beauty or luxury or truth as strongest in them. In each one of these all the other things in this kind of being are in them but mostly in all of them there is one part of this kind of being that is strongest in them. This one that I have been just describing was different in this from these others that I have been just mentioning. This one had mostly everything of this kind of being as equal in strength in him.
     This one said of himself that he had à slow mind, this one had a good mind and ran himself with this mind. This one had a capacity for profound, poignant, affectionate, intuitive experiencing of beauty, in him. This one was running himself by his mind and so, often, was shutting himself off from experiencing, his mind not letting him feel beauty in anything that his mind was not already rationally admitting as a thing to be so experiencing. This one then had the affection for truth and nobility and loyalty and made of them a moral conviction, this one had the affection for luxury and succeeding in living and being a superior being and this one made of these things a moral conviction. This one had wanting loving women in him and this one had protecting them as a moral conviction, this with loving luxury and succeeding in living and truth and loyalty and courage, and having in him the quality of not having attacking being as active in him, not having loving as attacking in him, all this made this one very confusing.