The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (85 page)

     As I was saying such a one as the Johnson I have been just describing, when he forgets his emotion that made him do a thing, always declares it to have been all the other one's doing, attributes his having yielded to his own weakness of being very susceptible to suggesting that being the thing in him uppermost in him to make a principle continuous in him of living. This is all different from self-righteousness which is a way of being that everything in one is right and should be so considered by every one, self-righteousness is believing that the one acting is so right that if every one acted like them everything would be right in living and every one would be a good one. This is a very different thing from the feeling that I am describing. These that I am describing make a principle to free them, from the weakness in them. It is a weakness, they are always saying it of them, one that he is too susceptible to suggesting, another that when a woman needs protecting of course he must give her that because she is a weak thing and he is always weak in yielding protection to a weak woman, another because she is so unobserving that she has no realisation of what anybody is doing though maybe it is her vanity that keeps her from really seeing. All these things are true as characteristics in each one of them that make a principle of them, these things are in each one of them, that is quite true of them but they all think that characteristic is the whole of them and so they have not to themselves the responsibility of the condition. Some are noble in it, some are not, but all of them are sure of it, for that is the principle of their being, to each one of them In short, they all, each one of this kind of them forget their emotion they had in the thing they were doing, and so to themselves after, it must have been the other person's fault that it happened, this thing, and these then after have no emotion of this thing, unless they are living it again in imagining and then they are the same as when they had it really in them, always else they have not the emotion, it is the other person's fault the thing happened between them, these have no emotion that they are remembering except the kind of weakness they know always to be in them each one and so they had no emotion then, they knew that well in them, and so it must have been their weakness and the other person's willing them that made them have this thing in them.
     As I was saying Phillip Redfern was such a one. As I was saying all this is very interesting in the meaning of virtue and religion that such a one has in them. This kind of being can be in them having independent dependent or dependent independent being in them, having any kind of being in them.
     Johnson when he forgets his emotion and declares it to have been all the other one's doing, attributes his having yielded to his own weakness, that being the thing in him to him uppermost in him. Frank Hackart attributes his to philanthropy, she was lonesome and threw herself on him, took possession, and what did he do but take care of her. Melanctha put 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. Sarah Sands puts her yielding down to unsuspiciousness, that is the reason she yields, she is so easy and that's it. All these things are true as characteristics in each one but they all think that characteristic is the whole of them. It isn't. They all forget their emotion and so it must have been the other person's fault it happened and they have now no emotion and so they had none and so it must have been the other person's.
     Phillip Redfern as I was saying was of this kind in men and women. He was always on his guard and always a woman could reach him inside his guard and he must do then what it was right for a man always on guard to do when he was touched inside the guard. He must give them their revenge and always again they would touch him. He must always be elaborately on guard and always he must give them what they asked of him when they touched him in spite of his guarding himself from them. This was the way his being worked in him.
     As I was saying many men and some women, many women and some men of this kind of them make a good deal of reputation in their living from the living and the being in them. Mostly all of them, at least very many of them, any way it is not uncommon among them that they make a failure of the whole of their living, mostly they want to succeed in winning recognition, mostly they get some from their living, very many of them are failing in the whole of their living, often some one thinks one of such of them a saint, a hero, a very noble person, often very many think such a one to be a very bad one. Phillip Redfern as I was saying was such a one. There were very many different ways of feeling the being in him as I am saying. This has been now a very little description of the being in him. As I was saying, to the ending of his living he had the same living in him and as a whole living, his living was failing.
     Phillip Redfern then had to himself a feeling of the being in him that was to him in a way a simple thing. Phillip Redfern was to Miss Dounor a man of saintly strength and courage and chivalrous feeling and self-sacrificing. Phillip Redfern was to Mrs. Redfern a man before whom she wanted to be intelligent, and honorable in acting and in feeling and delicate, and to be pleasing by knowing Greek and naive realism. Phillip Redfern was to very many a man who was always lying. Phillip Redfern was to very many a very brilliant man gone altogether wrong. Phillip Redfern was to very many a man always wronging every one. Phillip Redfern was to many a very brilliant man and a very weak one. Phillip Redfern was to some the kind of man I have been just describing. This has been now a little history of him.
     Virtue and virtuous feeling in men and women is a very peculiar thing. More and more there will be a description in this writing of all the kinds of ways any one can have virtue in them. Now there will be a very little description of virtue in men and women and then there will be a little more description of their sensitive being.
     Every one has then their own way of being important inside them from the things in them each one that are virtues in them to them, or vices in them to them, or strong things in them, to them, or weaknesses in them to them. Mostly every one has some kind of way of having some distinction inside them to themselves to their feeling and their thinking and their talking. Mostly every one has some kind of way of feeling some distinction in them, some from the tastes in them, some from the not having tastes or any way of doing anything in them, some as I was saying from the strong things in them, some as I was saying from the weak things in them. Mostly every one has some way of finding themselves inside them more or less distinguished, they have this feeling mostly every one, more or less inside them always in their living. Mostly every one is in some way a distinguished man or a distinguished woman inside themselves to themselves from something, from doing, being something, from not doing or being something, from doing things like some one, from doing things like every one, from doing things better or worse than some one, from doing things not so well or better than almost any one, from doing something and not doing some other thing, from doing some things and never doing some other things, there is every kind of thing that can give distinction and mostly every one has some kind of distinguished feeling in themselves to themselves inside them.
     Being virtuous, being sentimental, being dramatic, being religious, being anything is interesting in each one having in them that thing that they have in them. Being distinguished each one inside them by something, to themselves in their feeling, is very interesting.
     Sometime I want to understand every kind of way any one can have the feeling of being distinguished by the virtue they have in them. Sometime I want to understand every kind of way any one can have the feeling of being distinguished in them and every kind of thing that can give any one a feeling of such distinction in themselves inside them. Sometime I want to understand the complete being in each one and all the details of their coming to have in them their kind of feeling, imagination, thinking, knowing, certainty inside them, virtuous feeling in them, anything in them that gives to them inside them the feeling of being distinguished to themselves inside them.
     I want to know sometime all about sentimental feeling. I want to know sometime all the different kinds of ways people have it in them to be certain of anything. These and virtuous feelings in each one, of themselves to themselves having virtue inside them, is to me very interesting. Always more and more I want to know it of each one what certainty means to them, how they came to be certain of anything, what certainty means to them and how contradiction does not worry them and how it does worry them and how much they have in them of remembering and how much they have in them of forgetting, and how different any one is from any other one and what any one and every one means by anything they are saying. All these things are to me very interesting.
     As I was saying virtuous feeling and being certain of anything is to me very interesting. Having virtuous feeling and any certain feeling, that is being certain of anything is to me very interesting in every one. Having certainty in them is in each one, of the kind of way that their kind of men and women have it of having it in them. Having certainty in them is a thing very interesting in each one having a certainty of anything in her or in him. Certainty and virtuous feeling and religion, these are to me all three just now very interesting. Shortly I will try to tell a little of the way some come to have their certainty in them. Some build certainty up with little and little sure things and make a pile of them, some are summary and all embracing in the certain feeling they have always in them, some are certain of almost anything, some are hardly certain of anything, some have to have a complete system for each certain feeling in them, some have a sense of dramatic arrangement to complete the scene of the certain conviction, the certain emotion they have in them and the complete scene changes for them with each new certainty they have in them. Certainty worries some and some never have certainty to be a worry to them. Some have certainty by comparison, by comparing the thing they have then with what any other one they are knowing is having, some never compare anything with any one, certainty is a real thing in them, in some of such of them as a little pile they are gradually increasing, in some in something that they keep there inside them always of the same dimension. Some need company to keep their certainty from freezing or melting or evaporating or in some way disappearing. Some need company to keep any certainty in them, some like company around them while they have their own certainty inside them, some need to have the certainty in the presence of the company that they need to have with them. Certainty is certainly very interesting. I wish I knew all the kinds of certainty all the kinds of men and women ever existing have in them. Certainty and virtuous feeling and important feeling in men and in women is to me just now very very interesting.
     As I was saying the kind of certainty, the kind of virtuous feeling, the kind of important feeling any one has in them comes from the nature of them, from the kind they are of men and women. Some men and some women are strong enough to make their own kind of certain feeling in them, some are weak and can do one thing their own in the way of a certainty in them, some are strong enough in living and all of it all the certain feeling in them is some one else's, some can just resist and not get any one else's certain feeling and never make any of their own certain feeling to be inside them, some have everybody's certain feeling in them, some have a sentimental sense of the beauty and the loveliness and the truth of certain feeling and it is so lovely and so noble and everybody is so good and so beautiful and everybody has some certain feeling and in some such a feeling of certain feeling is a real thing. There are many ways of being sentimental, sometime there will be some description of some kinds of ways of being sentimental. Out of their own certain feeling some make a god who sometimes later is a terror to them. That is a kind of feeling that some have about laws of nature as they call them. Many make of their certain feeling a god which later terrifies them. Some are controlled by other's certain feeling. To some it is a comfort such a certain feeling. Some have it that some one else's certain feeling scares them. Listen to each one telling of the certain feeling in them. It is very interesting. Some like their own certain feeling, some later forget it, some later are scared by it, some later are it. Some love their certain feeling enough never to want to lose it, some have it when they are not any longer believing in it, some can completely lose it, some get mixed up with theirs and other ones and they have very much trouble with all of it, all the certain feeling they ever come to know in living. Some love their certain feeling and they never lose it, some love it and they sometime lose it, some always are looking for it, some are immortal in themselves by it, some neither have it nor haven't it, some are to themselves only a part of it. Some love it so hard that other people have it. Some have it, some never really have it, some never really own it. Many need company for it, this is very common. Some need drama to support it, some need lying to help it, some love it, some hate it, some never are very certain they really have it. Certain feeling in men and women is very interesting.
     What was Phillip Redfern's way with certainty and virtue and distinction in himself to himself inside him. He was to himself as I was saying simple, sensuous and passionate. This was not really a description of him to any other one. This was all he ever said to any one of the being in him. This was the feeling he had in him of the being he had in him. He never said it any differently of himself to any one. He was to himself of the good kind in men and women, he was on guard because women and other things were dangerous things, he always felt he would be winning and always he was failing and this was always happening to him. Always to mostly every one he was lying. Always he was telling all that it was right for him to tell to any one. That was the way any man would act, of that he was very certain. No man would tell more than he should tell if he was the kind of a man Redfern would speak of as a good one. This was very certain knowledge in him, in Phillip Redfern. He was certain always that he was telling all that it was right for him, for any man to tell to any one. To mostly every one he was a man who was mostly always lying about himself and about every other one who had any relation to him. This was true in his living, he was telling all that it was right he should be telling to any one, every one was always feeling, always saying that he was mostly always always lying. To himself it was not a virtue in him that he was never telling anything more about anything about himself about any one than it was right that he should be telling, it was to himself then, this in him, not a virtuous feeling in him, it was a thing it was natural for him to be doing, never to tell anything, it was not right that he should say really to any one. He had not then from this any feeling of virtue in him. He had a feeling of virtue although it was as he felt it in him a weakness in him that he always kept himself on guard so that temptation should never come close to him. This was to him in a way a virtue in him, that he always was on guard so that no woman, nothing he did not want should touch him, should come close to him. This was to him a virtue in him, though it was from the weakness of him that he needed to be always guarding but it was a weakness of what can any man do when a demand is made upon him, kind of weakness in him, that was a weakness that any man who was a man must have in living, and so he Redfern always being on guard had from that to himself a virtuous feeling in him, and this then as I am saying is very common. One man Johnson as I was saying had it that he always ran away and left the other one to manage any trouble they had made together and this was a weakness in him, yes, but it was a consistent thing in him and he needed it for living, and it really was wisdom in him, this thing and so in a way it was a virtuous thing in him Some have this kind of virtuous feeling in resisting always all experiencing. There are many ways as I was saying of having this kind of virtuous feeling.