The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (84 page)

     This is very true then, this is very true then of the feeling and the thinking that makes the meaning in the words one is using, this is very true then that to many of them having in them strongly a sense of realising the meaning of the words they are using that some words they once were using, later have not any meaning and some then have a little shame in them when they are copying an old piece of writing where they were using words that sometime had real meaning for them and now have not any real meaning in them to the feeling and the thinking and the imagining of such a one. Often this is in me in my feeling, often then I have to lose words I have once been using, now I commence again with words that have meaning, a little perhaps I had forgotten when it came to copying the meaning in some of the words I have just been writing. Now to begin again with what I know of the being in Phillip Redfern, now to begin again a description of Phillip Redfern and always now I will be using words having in my feeling, thinking, imagining very real meaning. As I was saying Phillip Redfern was to very many who knew him a queer one, he was to very many who knew him a bad one, he was to some who knew him so good a one that he was almost a real saint for them. This was true of him then and now I will begin a little more description of the kind of being in him, of the kind of being he had in living, of the many millions men and women always being like him.
     He was of the kind of men and women who, in the end, to every one, have been as if they had been a failure. They are many of them, many of this kind of them, many of the kind of which Redfern was one, that have had very much reputation, have been well known for their living, for the being in them, in their living very many of this kind of them. These see themselves, always have, do and will see themselves all their living as virtuous, as heroic, as noble, as successful, as beautiful, as whatever is the best way of being to them, see themselves so through the weakness as well as through the strong things in them. Many men and many women see themselves as virtuous always in their living, this is a little now very interesting.
     Many then have it in them that their weakness is a virtue in them. There are very many of this kind of them then. Johnson when he forgets his emotion, the emotion he had when he was friendly or loving or fighting, Johnson when he forgets his emotion and declares it to have been all the other one's doing attributes his having yielded to this indulging in loving, fighting, friendly action, to the weakness in him of always yielding. This weakness of his is uppermost in him and to himself, having forgotten that he had been himself wanting the thing he had once, later in describing, feeling of thinking the action over he says it was because he has the weakness of never being able to resist any one who wants anything. Perhaps Johnson began but later he forgets his having been wanting the thing, he remembers only that always he does anything anybody wants him to be doing, that is the weakness in him that is to him the whole principle of the being in him. Frank Hackart attributes his doing anything to the philanthropy in him, she was lonesome and threw herself on him, took possession and what did he do but take care of her. This later in telling, in remembering, in feeling is always the history of any woman and him. Mary Helbing always puts it down to, that they wanted it and she gave it but she had no responsibility, it was because she was so game that she did it, that is always the reason she does it, she is so game she never refuses anything that is a challenge, there is never anything that she is ever wanting in her living that she is ever getting. Sarah Sands puts her yielding down to unsuspiciousness, that is the reason she yields, she is so easy, that is the secret of it. Phillip Redfern was of this kind of them, he was to himself completely chivalrous, completely a gentleman, women, every one should always have complete courtesy always from him. And they are right all of them, all these things, each thing in each one, are characteristics in each one but they all think that one characteristic is the whole of them, they all of them forget the other things in them that are active in them, they all have it in common that in remembering anything they forget all the emotion they had then in them and so it must have been the other person's fault it happened, anything. All of them in remembering have not had any emotion except the one and so they had none then and so it must have been the other person. This is a little now very interesting.
     As I was saying Phillip Redfern was of this kind in men and women.
     There will be now more description of virtuous being, virtuous feeling in men and women. There will be now some description of religious feeling in some men and women, of virtuous and religious feeling in them, of the being in them, oî the sensitiveness in them, of the worldly feeling in them, of succeeding and failing in them. First then there will be more description of the kind of being in some men, men like Phillip Redfern, of religious, virtuous feeling in some men.
     As I was saying some of the things all men have in them in their daily living have it to come in more men, only from the bottom nature in them than other things in them. Nothing of all the things all men have in them in their daily living comes in all men from the bottom nature of them. Eating, drinking, loving, anger in them, beginning and ending in them come more from many men from the bottom nature of most of them than other things in them but always there are many men of all the millions of each kind of them who have it in them not to have even eating and drinking and doctoring and living and anger in them and beginning and ending in them come from the bottom nature of them.
     Men in their living have many things inside them, they have in them, each one of them has it in him, his own way of feeling himself important inside in him, they have in them all of them their own way of beginning, their own way of ending, their own way of working, their own way of having loving inside them and loving coming out from them, their own way of having anger inside them and letting their anger come out from inside them, their own way of eating their own way of drinking, their own way of sleeping, their own way of doctoring. They have each one of them their own way of fighting they have in them all of them their own way of having fear in them. They have all of them in them their own way of believing, their own way of being important inside them their own way of showing to others around them the important feeling inside in them.
     Mostly every one has some kind of way of conceiving of themselves as a strong one, as a weak one, as a good one, as a bad one, as a virtuous, as an honorable one, as a religious, as an irreligious, as an unreligious one.
     Mostly every one has some kind of way of conceiving of themselves, as a strong one, as a weak one, as a good one, as a bad one, as a virtuous one, as an honorable one, as a religious one, as an irreligious one, as an unreligious one.
     Some as I am saying have honor in them and religion from the nature of them when this is strong enough in them to make it their own inside them. Some can make their own honor, some their own living, some their own religion, some are weak and can do one thing, make one thing their own, some are strong enough and all of it, loving, honor, and religion in them, all of it is some one else's, of some one else's making, some can just resist and not make their own anything, there are many of them. Some out of their own virtue make a god who sometimes later is a terror to them. Out of their own virtue they make a god who sometimes later is a terror to them. Some make some things like laws out of the nature of them, out of the nature of some other one. Some are controlled by other people's virtue, and then it scares them. Listen to each one telling about their own virtue and that grows to make a god for them, grows to be a law for them and often afterwards scares them, some afterwards like it, some forget it, some are it. Some honor what is right to them for them to be doing. Some separate honor from the doing of the thing, have it as a feeling.
     Some love themselves enough to not want to lose themselves, immortality can to them mean nothing but this thing. Some love themselves negatively, then impersonal future life is for them alright, a good enough thing. Some love themselves and others so hard that they are sure that they will exist even when they won't, they do to themselves exist even when they don't, these have a future life feeling, an individual thing, some love themselves and they are it and that is all there is of it in them and they do not have future life in them to be an important thing. Men and women have being in them all of them when they are living. Many men and women have in them a feeling of future life in them, very many of them, some for this life, some for another life, some for both lives, this and another one, some have a stronger, some have a weaker feeling of themselves inside them, some have more, some have less loving in them for themselves than other ones have in them, some have more some have less loving in them for other ones than others have in them, some have more some have less feeling for some thing than other ones have in them and all these things in each one are part in them of the virtuous feeling, of the religious feeling they have in them each one, each man and woman, each one having man or woman being in them, each man or woman has some being in her or in him.
     There are some who have not any feeling of virtue in them. There are not very many of them. There are perhaps some millions of them. Mostly every one as I am saying has in her or in him some kind of feeling of being of virtue in living. Some from the things they feel as weakness in them, some from the things they feel as strength in them. Phillip Redfern had it in him to make a virtue for him of a thing he felt as a weakness in him. There are very many of this kind of them, many, very many men, many women.
     Mostly all of this kind of men and women have some kind of religion in them. This is now a little a discussion of the being in some of them.
     As I was saying Phillip Redfern was of the kind of men and women, and there are always many men of this kind of them and some women of this kind of them, who have in their living a good deal of reputation from the living and the being in them and then they are not successful in living successful in the whole of their living and to many knowing them they are romantic in their living, or beautiful, or dramatic in their living and to some, saints in living, and Redfern was such a one and to most every one he was a man always failing in his living, and to Miss Dounor he was a saint among men and to Mrs. Redfern he was wonderful in the honorable courtesy in him and mostly every one sometime thought he was a bad man and mostly to every one he was a man given to lying. He said once of some one, “Lathrop tells a lie as if it were the truth and I tell the truth as if it were a lie.” He was to himself a man simple, sensuous and passionate and that was to himself the whole of him. As I was saying his weakness was to himself the strength in him and so always all his living to every one who ever came to know, excepting to some to whom he was a saint in suffering, to every one mostly he was failing from the weaknesses there were in him. To himself as I was saying he was a simple, sensuous, passionate being from whom chivalry demanded he should be always yielding when he himself was not active in feeling. He was a man always on guard, with every one always able to pierce him. That was the living he had in him.
     For the rest of his days he was a literary man and sometimes a politician. He plunged deeply into the political life of his time and failed everywhere, in this life as in all of his human relations his instincts gave the lie to his ideals and his ideals to his instincts. It was interesting to many to witness the life of this man, to see him go up again and again, against the yielding spirit in him, go up with unwearied courage only to meet with certain defeat. He was himself the only one of all the lookers on who dreamed of victory. The others whether watching with indifference, with deep sympathy or stern condemnation, with malicious or righteous triumph knew that he would fail, but he always struggled on filled to the very end with hope and courage, always defeated and always ready to make the fresh assault.
     As I was saying there was a Johnson who had made some reputation in his living, by the living that was romantic to every one knowing, by the being in him and always he was certain in telling, feeling, and thinking that everything that had happened to him when as was the way in him, he was finished with that thing, that it was because he was weak and open to any suggesting and that made, it happen that he was in a relation and he had the right to get out in any way he wanted for that was the right he had to defend himself when every one had him where they wanted to have him because he was so weak to every one's suggesting. He would brag of things he had done when he was filled up with them and always he was filled up with them and he would know he had a right to run away or do anything to defend himself for every one could hold him by suggesting to him by the sensitive suggestibility in him and this was his great weakness in him and he made of it the principle of his living to himself in his talking, thinking, feeling, and he was of the kind of them and perhaps Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde were of this kind of them, he was of them who become romantic, heroic, beautiful, saintly by the weakness in them that is there always acting, that is true of them, but always these are doing things and boasting of them in their active living. There are very many of such of them. Redfern was such a one. A Johnson I was describing was such a one. Some have only this a little in them enough to make them very sentimental in their living, some have it a little more in them than those having it just as sentimental being in them and some of such of them are men's men and some of such of them are women's men. And Hackart that I was just describing was one of such of them. Some have it just a little more in them than the sentimental ones and they are dramatic in their living and there are very many women and there are very many men who have this being in them and a Sarah Sands was such a one as I was just saying. There are some who have this way of being only in spots in them. There are many such of them, many women and many men of such of them.