The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (86 page)

     As I was saying people having in them any of the kinds of being I have been describing very often have very much reputation in their living sometime from the living and the being they have in them. Very many of them in their living are to some one believing in them, saints or heroes or beautiful creatures or wonderfully romantic creatures in their living and are to very many people knowing them, liars and cowards and bad men and bad women and to themselves they are men and women having in them a weakness yes and a virtuous feeling yes and a certain feeling of the real distinction of the consistent action their weakness entails on them.
     Johnson as I was saying always attributes his having yielded to be in any situation to his own weakness that being the uppermost thing in him to him and always then that being the true reason he is in the situation he is in, to himself then, he has it as the only right thing for him always to be doing then is escaping and he always then does run away and leave the other one with the trouble or the blame of the situation they both were in. Hackart attributes his troubles, when he has any, and he often has them to the philanthropy in him, she was lonesome and took possession of him and what did he do but take care of her and so after all when some one else needs him, he must leave her for of course he must help the one that needs him most, that's easy for any one to see and that is what Hackart is always doing, being a man's man and a woman's man and philanthropic in his feeling. Another one puts her yielding to her grit and she has given everything, herself and everything and then the other one wants more and that is a ridiculous thing and of course she will not pay any attention to the clamoring of that other one who has been given everything and by one who never wants anything from any one. Another put her yielding down to guilelessness and always believing anything anybody wants to make her believe and then she gets sick and must defend herself by attacking and she ought really to learn to attack the other one before she has suffered by them but this can never come to her because of the nature in her to be always believing in every one. Redfern always was on guard, that was his contribution to defending himself and then some one came close to him and then he gave that one always all her living everything she ever wanted from him. He always gave to every one who ever was in any relation with him completely everything they could ask of him every minute in his living and to the ending of their or his living. This was a certain thing in his feeling, he gave every one unceasingly everything they could possibly demand of him. That was his being and his living to himself all his living. That was his being and his living to one or two and these made a great person or a saint of him to them and to very many he was one who was in a complete sense a man never trustworthy in anything, never realising his obligation to any one. This then has been some description of the being in Phillip Redfern. To the last hour of his living he was faithful to the certainty of having been faithful to every one who ever had come to have any claim upon him. To the last hour of his living he was to himself completely giving himself to any one that had come to touch him. Always he was guarding himself, always to the last moment of his living to himself, always to himself to the last moment of his living he was faithful to everything he owed to every one and any one.
     This is now then a little more description of the being in three women who had each one their own feeling about him, Miss Dounor, Miss Charles and his wife Mrs. Redfern. This is now a little more description of the being each one of the three of them had in them the being and the completed living of each one of them.
     To begin then with Miss Dounor, her feeling and her living and her feeling Phillip Redfern in her living.
     To very many, to, sometimes any one would think, mostly every one some one's way of loving, some other one's way of loving, some other one's way of living, some other one's way of keeping somethings and not other things, of throwing away some things and not other things, some one's way of buying some things and not buying other things is a foolish one. Mostly every one finds that things other ones are wanting are very foolish things for any one to be wanting, for that one to be wanting, to be buying, to be keeping. Each one has in him a very certain feeling of things any one having any sense in them should be wanting to have in living. It is very hard for mostly every one to understand why another one has that way of loving, that way of being angry in them that they have in them. Some try to understand the other one's way of doing these things but mostly every one finds it very puzzling. What can any one want with buying, keeping, wanting any such thing each one says of something some one has been wanting, buying, keeping. This is very common. Very many could forgive some one anything excepting the way that one has angry feeling or injured feeling in them. Some could let anything pass excepting the kind of way some one has of loving. That gives them an angry feeling, that is all there is about it to them. It is very very common that some one could forgive anybody anything excepting the way they have of having angry or injured feeling in them. This is very very common. Some can never understand the queer ways in another one. Mr. Hersland always was saying to his three children that the ways they had in them were only habits, there was no need they should have these ways in them. He had ways in him, they were him to him, the ways his children had in them were habits and it was not at all necessary that they should have any such habits in them. Many think that some one, some others could do the work they are doing in some other way from the way these are doing their working. As I am saying it is very, very common that some one could forgive some one anything excepting the way they have angry feeling, or injured feeling or loving feeling in them. Now then to begin a little description of the being in some women and the feeling they each had about the other one and the feeling they each one had about Redfern.
     Perhaps no one ever will know the complete history of every one. This is a sad thing. Perhaps no one will ever have as a complete thing the history of any one. This is a very sad thing. Sometime each one will have made a complete history of them in the repeating always coming out of them. Sometime perhaps some one will really know it of some one, that will be a very contenting thing to some. Some seeing a mistake in their copying, say then, oh how can I ever be certain, perhaps I have made many mistakes I have not been noticing. This is a sad thing. Some every time they see a mistake they have been making say, if I almost did not see this one in reading it again, very likely there are very many I did not see for I would not have seen this one if I had not been noticing very carefully when I was seeing this one, and this is a very sad thing. Some say then, I noticed this one and so always I am noticing all the mistakes I am ever making and that is very pleasant if any one can believe what they are hearing from some one, and then some one says with a mistake they have been noticing, this is certainly the first mistake I have ever made in copying and that is comforting too only one can hardly at all believe that one and then some one says of a copying, I never make any mistake in copying and that is almost irritating to be hearing for always every one is making mistakes and that is a very sad thing.
     Perhaps no one ever will know the complete history of every one. This is a sad thing. Perhaps no one will ever have as a complete thing the history of any one. This is a very sad thing. Surely some one sometime will have a complete history of some one. All this gives to some a very despairing feeling. Some one is hearing something, and they think then, it is only by an accident that I have heard that thing, I have known that thing, always there are many things that I am not knowing, that is very certain, every one always is repeating, that there is not any denying, certainly sometime some one always paying all attention must know sometime the history of some one. Perhaps no one ever gets a complete history of any one. This is very discouraging thinking. I am very sad now in this feeling. Always, hearing something, gives to some a sad feeling of realising everything they have not been hearing and that they are not knowing and perhaps they can never have really in them the complete history of any one, no one ever can have in them the complete history of any one and that is then a very melancholy feeling in them. There is a little comfort to some of such of them that always every one is repeating the whole of them, that always every one always is repeating all the being in them and then that is a little a comfort to such a one and then such a one knows always how important each repeating in each one is to make a completer realisation of that one and how each repeating is more and more a completion of the history of the being of each one and then such a one knowing how many repeatings out of each one that one is not hearing has in that one a very dreary feeling. Sadness is then in that one, sadness and gentle melancholy despairing. Repeating is in each one, yes, always coming out of them, yes that is a little a comforting, each repeating is important to be knowing and that is interesting and that is a sad thing to one wanting to have in them complete histories of men and women.
     Sometimes in listening to a conversation which is very important to two men, to two women, to two men and women, sometime then it is a wonderful thing to see how each one always is repeating everything they are saying and each time in repeating, what each one is saying has more meaning to each one of them and so they go on and on and on and on repeating and always to some one listening, repeating is a very wonderful thing. There are many of them who do not live in each repeating each repeating coming out of them but always repeating is interesting. Repeating is what I am loving. Sometimes there is in me a sad feeling for all the repeating no one loving repeating is hearing, it is like any beauty that no one is seeing, it is a lovely thing, always some one should be knowing the meaning in the repeating always coming out of women and of men, the repeating of the being in them. So then.
     Every one is a brute in her way or his way to some one, every one has some kind of sensitiveness in them.
     Some feel some kinds of things others feel other kinds of things. Mostly every one feels some kinds of things. The way some things touch some and do not touch other ones and kinds in men and women then I will now begin to think a little bit about describing. To begin then.
     I am thinking it is very interesting the relation of the kind of things that touch men and women with the kind of bottom nature in them, the kind of being they have in them in every way in them, the way they react to things which may be different from the way they feel them.
     I am thinking very much of feeling things in men and women. As I was saying every one is a brute in her way or his way to some one, every one has some kind of sensitiveness in them. Mostly every one has some inner way of feeling in them, almost every one has some way of reacting to stimulus in them. This is not always the same thing. These things have many complications in them.
     I am beginning now a little a description of three women, Miss Dounor, Miss Charles and Mrs. Redfern. I am beginning now a little a realisation of the way each one of them is in her way a brute to some one, each one has in her way a kind of sensitiveness in being. This is now some description of each one of the three of them Miss Dounor, Miss Charles and Mrs. Redfern.
     In listening to a conversation, as I was saying, repeating of each one and the gradual rising and falling and rising again of realisation is very interesting. This is now some description of the three women and as I was saying of the sensitiveness in each one of them to somethings and the insensitiveness to other things and the bottom nature in them and the kinds of repeating in them and the bottom nature and the other natures mixed with the bottom nature in each one of them.
     Sensitiveness to something, understanding anything, feeling anything, that is very interesting to understand in each one How much, when and where and how and when not and where not and how not they are feeling, thinking, understanding. To begin again then with feeling anything.
     Mostly every one is a brute in her way or his way to some one, mostly every one has some kind of sensitiveness in them.
     Mostly every one can have some kind of feeling in them, very many men and very many women can have some understanding in them of some kind of thing by the kind of being sensitive to some kind of impression that they have in them.
     Some kinds of men and women have a way of having sensation from some things and other men and women have it in them to be able to be impressionable to other kinds of things. Some men and some women have very much of sensitive being in them for the kind of thing they can be feeling, they can then be very loving, or very trembly from the abundant delicate fear in them, or very attacking from the intensity of the feeling in them, or very mystic in their absorption of feeling which is then all of them. There are some men and women having in them very much weakness as the bottom in them and watery anxious feeling, and sometimes nervous anxious feeling then in them and sometimes stubborn feeling then in them. There are some who have vague or vacant being as the bottom in them and it is very hard to know with such ones of them what feeling they have ever in them and there are some with almost intermittent being in them and it is very hard to tell with such of them what kind of thing gives to them a feeling, what kind of feeling they ever have really in them. As I was saying mostly every one sometimes feels something, some one, is understanding something, some one, has some kind of sensitiveness in them to something, to some one, mostly every one.
     As I was saying some men and some women have very much of sensitive being in them for something that can give to them real feeling. They can then, some of these of them, when they are filled full then of such feeling, they can then be completely loving, completely believing, they can then have a trembling awed being in them, they can have then abundant trembly feeling in them, they can then be so full up then with the feeling in them that they are a full thing and action has no place then in them, they are completely then a feeling, there are then men and women, there are then women and men who have then this finely sensitive completed feeling that is sometime all them and perhaps Cora Dounor was one of such of them. Perhaps she was one of them and was such a one in loving Phillip Redfern. Perhaps that was the whole being she had in her then.