The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (75 page)

     As I was saying it is very hard telling from knowing something some one did sometime, the nature in them. As I was saying it is very difficult to know the nature in a man or in a woman from knowing even quite a number of things they are doing; it is even harder to know the nature in children from the action in them as I have been just saying, that is true of many children, not of all of them by any means and that must never be forgotten.
     As I was saying Martha Hersland when she was a little one a very little one and the others were running ahead and she had the umbrella for one of them and she was struggling to catch up with the rest of them and they were disappearing and she was being filled fuller always with angry feeling and resentment and desperation and she was crying out, “I will throw the umbrella in the mud,” and nobody was hearing and she was repeating again and again and then in a moment of triumphing she did throw the umbrella in the mud and then she went on crying and saying, “I did throw the umbrella in the mud,” this is a description of an action that many very different kinds of children could have been doing when they were left behind struggling, Martha Hersland did this and she was a little girl then and slowly now there will come to be a complete description of the nature in her that this I have been just describing does not now help very much to be understanding.
     Now there will be some description of Martha Hersland in her young living and the children she knew when she was beginning living.
     I was telling of the living of the Hersland family in Gossols on a ten acre place and of people living in small houses near them and it was then that Martha Hersland was a child and was knowing children. She knew some children at the public school near them where she and her brothers had their American education, some children that were living then in the small houses near the ten acre place where the Hersland family were living then as I was telling and some other children who knew these children. She knew some children at the public school. Some children were living near them in the small houses as I was telling and she knew them and knew some other children who knew these children. And then she knew some children who sometimes came to see them, the Hersland children, who were the kind of children she naturally should have been knowing, from the kind of people Mr. and Mrs. Hersland should naturally be knowing, but these children were never important in her living. Mostly then she was knowing children living near her, and children knowing these children.
     Mostly then, Martha, and as I was saying this was mostly true of all three of them of all three of the Hersland children, Martha when she was in the beginning of her living was more of them, the children, the people living in the small houses near them and the friends of these people, of these children, than she was of her family living, of her mother's and father's country house living. She was then not at all of the living that would naturally have been her kind of living, of well-to-do living.
     She was then, as a child, as a young girl, almost until she was a young woman of the being of those living in small houses near them.
     Much description of the being in the children living in the small houses near the ten acre place where the Herslands were living and of children living in other parts of Gossols and knowing these children will be in the description of the beginning being of the youngest of the three Hersland children, in the history of David Hersland. Now in the history of the beginning of the being of Martha the oldest of the three Hersland children there will be more a description of how other children felt the being in her, how every one felt the being in her and so there will be a description of her as every one who knew her felt her, now, in her beginning, and then, later in her living.
     There will then be much description of the being in the children living in the small houses near them and of many other children in the history of the beginning of the youngest of the Hersland children who was really more of them, these children, than his brother or his sister ever had been. Now this is a description of the beginning of the being in the eldest of the Hersland children, in Martha Hersland and there will be now much description of how every one ever knowing Martha felt the being in her, other children knowing her, her governesses and the servants and her brothers and her teachers and her mother and her father and later other girls and boys and later her lover and later her husband and then very many who then knew her and then again her brothers and her father, and again then everybody who then and on from then to her ending knew her.
     All three of the Hersland children as I was saying were when they were children very much of the living of the people living in small houses near them. The youngest of the three Hersland children David Hersland was so entirely of them when he was in his beginning, of them, of the children at school with him, of children knowing these children and the children living in the small houses near the Hersland family then, was so entirely of the being of all these children that in the description of the being in him there will be very much description of the being in many of them. In the child being of the second Hersland child the elder son, Alfred Hersland there was also a little of this that he was very much of the living of the people around him but it was not in him so completely inside him as it was in the being of the younger son David Hersland, the youngest of the three Hersland children. Then Alfred Hersland was very much sooner through with having it in him the living of the people around him as part of the being in him than either his younger brother or his older sister. He was then really less of them the poor people around him than either of the other two Hersland children but nevertheless in his young living in his playing and in his being interested then, he too was very much of them the poor people near them, though it was never really very deep in him and it was very soon all ended for him. He was then, Alfred Hersland in a sense in his being less really of the being of the people living in small houses near him, more of the people it was natural for him to know in his living though he was not of them at all in his beginning than his brother or his sister and this will come out very clearly in the history of him that will be written after the history of Martha has reached its completion. It will be interesting then to know it in each one of the Hersland children just how they were of the living of the, for them, poor people near them.
     As I was saying David, the youngest of them was of the living of the people living in the small houses near them, of their living, of their children's living, David had really inside him the living and the being of the people living in the small houses and of the people that knew these people and the children that knew these children and so they, all of them the being in them the natures of many of them will come to have much description of them being given in the very long history of David Hersland that will be written after there has been written some descriptions of Martha Hersland and then of Alfred Hersland. So then sometime there will be much description of the nature of many of the men, women and children, of the families the Herslands knew in their living in the ten acre place in a part of Gossols where no rich people were living, where there were not living any who would naturally have been friends then of the Hersland children if the Hersland family had been living the well to do living that was really natural for them. There will then in the history of young David Hersland which will be a very long one there will be much description of many people who lived near them the Hersland family then. As I was saying Alfred Hersland was very much less of them the people then living around him than his younger brother David than in a sense the daughter of the Hersland family, the eldest of them of the children, Martha. Alfred was of them in playing in quarrelling, in taking excursions for hunting and other things and in bicycling and in many ways, then, and when he was beginning to be somewhere near being a young man. This will all be told in the history of him which will be begun after there has been written a little description of the whole being and all the living of his elder sister Martha which is now what is here in beginning. So then in the history of David Hersland there will be much description of the being and the nature of the people near the Hersland family when Martha, Alfred and David were children and until they were young men and women, in the history of Alfred Hersland there will be descriptions of his being with them of Alfred's being with the people around the Hersland family then and what he did with them in the way of playing, quarrelling and living. Martha Hersland was more of the living and the being of the people around them then than Alfred ever was really inside him but not so much of them as David was of them and now in the history of Martha Hersland there will be a description of them only in the sense of what way they, the people knowing the Hersland family then, knew her and felt her.
     This is now clear then, by and by there will be much description of the being and the character in many of these people, families, men, women and children that the Hersland children knew when they were children and on from them until they were almost young men and women, in the long history of David Hersland that will be written after there has been written some of the history of Martha Hersland and of Alfred Hersland the two elder Hersland children. There will then be written also the meaning of these men and women to Mr. and Mrs. David Hersland the father and the mother of the three Hersland children. So then all that will happen, all that will be written after there is written some description of living and the being of the two elder Hersland children. First then now there will be written some description of Martha Hersland in her beginning. After there has been written something of the history of her living some description of her being, there will be written a history of her brother Alfred up to the time of his marrying Julia Dehning. After that will be written the whole long history of the youngest of the three children David Hersland and all through there will be written some history of the father and mother and of all the governesses and servants living in the house with the Hersland family. So then to begin again. In the history of young David Hersland there will be written much description of the character and living of every one the Hersland family ever came to know in all the time they were living in the ten acre place in that part of Gossols where no other rich people were living. In the history of Alfred Hersland there will be much description of the things Alfred did with and to them, all of them whom the Hersland family came to know then. Now in the history of Martha Hersland there will be much description of how every one knowing the Hersland family then came to feel and know her and them, what every one knowing them felt in her and in the Hersland living, what every one knowing them and knowing her felt about her, knew about her, felt about them, knew about them.
     There are many ways of disguising the whole being that is each one, some have a stronger disguising of them in their beginning living, stronger then than in their middle living, or in their ending. In many this is now true of them. Soon now there will be some discussing of the disguising of whole being in young living. Now there will be some description of how every one who knew Martha Hersland knew and felt the being and the living she had in her, how her father felt her, how her mother felt her, how the servants felt her, each one of them, how each one of the governesses knew and felt her, in short how every one who knew her then, men women and children who knew her then, knew her then, felt her then. To begin then.
     As I was saying it is very hard to know the being in some one from some few things they have been doing, it is hard knowing any one but sometime each one knowing any one has some feeling of that one.
     There are many ways of disguising the whole being, in each one. Some have a stronger disguise in their beginning than in their middle living or in their ending. Some have a stronger disguise in their middle living than in their beginning living or when they are ending living. Some have a stronger disguise when they are ending living than at any other time in their living. Some do not have at any time in their living more disguising of the real being in them than at any other time in their living. Martha Hersland was one of such of them. This is now the way every one knowing Martha Hersland felt the being in her.
     Martha Hersland was of the independent dependent kind in men and women. The one I was describing as being independent dependent being as in fluid condition and held together to be one by the skin surrounding that one was of the same kind of being then as that in Martha Hersland, in Martha the being was in a little more concentrated condition but the proportion of attacking and obstinate resisting and quickness and hesitation and ways of being always in every part of living a whole one was the same in Martha Hersland as in the one I was describing as being independent dependent being in completely fluid condition and being a whole one only, and always being one, by having a skin to hold it in and to separate it so from every one and make it so an individual one. Martha then was of the independent dependent kind in men and women, Martha had this being then in more concentration in a more solid condition than the one I was earlier describing. It is a little true now to me of Martha and a little true to me of many men and women having independent dependent being in them that the being in them being like the one I was describing, the one having all independent dependent being in solution in a fluid condition, and my knowing independent dependent being so well in that one and that one being such a fluid whole one, gives to me seeing them an uncomfortable feeling to know it so well from this one I was describing, the being in them, the activities in them, in some having independent dependent being; sometimes it makes me a little turn away from seeing the being in some having in them independent dependent being so that I will not know it too clearly in them the being that they have in them, all the meaning of the being in them and that is a little now the way I am feeling in looking at the being in Martha Hersland and now all the same I am beginning completely to realise all the meaning there is in the being there is in her and always now I will look straight on at her. I will know all the being in her. Martha was of the independent dependent kind of them as I was saying, she was as I was saying like the one I was describing that was independent dependent being in completely fluid condition and always was a whole one in the beginning of the being there was in that one in the middle of the living of that one, in the ending of the living of that one. Martha then was like that one in the relation of things in her being, she was more concentrated more solid than that one, it was not only the skin that kept her apart from other ones, there was actual individual being always in Martha but Martha was a whole one, in her beginning, in her middle living, in her ending, she was all through her of the same concentration, of the same nature, always it was the same being in her, that in her in her beginning, in her being a baby, a little one, a little bigger one, and so on. Always Martha like the other one I was describing was a whole one. This is now some description of what each one who knew her felt in her, this is now some descriptions of the nature in her, of the living that was in her.