The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (94 page)

     There are a very great many then that have as a concrete realisation always in them that dead is dead, that things are as they see them, that they are doing things when they are doing them and these then can have it in them that they realise as a generalisation that to be dead is not to be so very really dead, that things are not perhaps what they are to them, that they are living with other men around them who have it in them to have religion in them which is certain that to be dead is not to be a really dead one and these then have it in them to equilibrate themselves to this opinion, the opinion the conviction of being not dead when they are dead of having virtue in them when they are not doing any good thing of never doing anything any good man cannot be doing when really they are doing that thing very often and this is a generalised sense in them all through their living and always then they are really living the dead is dead living as a concrete living. To some having this equilibrating, this generalised conception is only sentimental in them, in some it is a way of being important to themselves inside them to make it strongly in them this generalised equilibration in them, to very many it is a very simple thing of being like every one for every one to mostly any one is like this in their living is being of a conviction that dead is not really dead, that good is progressing, that every one is a good one in some way of endeavoring. This is a very common thing then and always and always it will in its simple in its complicated forms will be interesting, will be illuminating in the being and the living of Alfred Hersland and Mr. Herman Dehning and his son George Dehning.
     Explaining ones vices by ones virtues is one way of feeling, thinking, believing, knowing, thinking believing, feeling, knowing oneself inside one in living. This is a very different thing from that which I have been just describing as sometimes perplexing, as very common, the generalised conception which is of virtue in many men and many women and the concrete feeling and acting that is not of virtue in them. Explaining ones vices by ones virtues then is one way of feeling thinking knowing believing the being inside in one different from that I have been just describing, different from the being in Redfern which I was once describing which was as I was then saying was an explaining ones virtues by the vices in them. There is then explaining ones virtues by ones vices and others then explain their vices by the virtues in them. There are certainly a very great many ways of having virtuous feeling in them in men and women and yet after all there are not such a very great many ways of them, there are a good many ways though and this is now some more description of virtuous feeling, being, thinking, knowing believing, in men and in women. Later then there will be very much discussion of different kinds of sensibility and way of having it in them in men and women.
     A man having it in him to have the generalised conviction of good being as completely him and the concrete acting of being a mean spirited and tyrannical man in living and always taking everything he can that it is not dangerous for him to be taking and never giving anything that is not taken from him, one of such a kind of them can have it in him to be always speaking and very often in his talking it comes out again and again that he is a good man, and a noble man, and a very angry one whenever any one ever is doing anything that he knows of them that is not a fine action a good generous way of doing, thinking, believing, feeling and sometime perhaps some one might say to him a sister-in-law or a brother-in-law of him, of such a one, why did you do that mean thing to that man, and he would then say to such a one, because he was such a mean man he deserved all I could give him to get the best of him, and then the brother-in-law or the sister-in-law might say then to him, but you say you are such an awfully good man how could such a good man as you are do such a mean thing to any one, and then such a one would be answering, a good man could do such a thing to another mean man, didn't I do that thing to that mean kind of a man and don't you know don't every one always know it in him that I am a good man, you know that, and then there would be no answer that could touch him. Such men are very common, they are very often not full up with religion these are good men that is the conviction that is the feeling of themselves inside them to themselves in them, that is the complete being in them to themselves completely in all the believing, feeling, doing, thinking ever in them. These then are not being good in the name of god or in the conviction of religion, they never do a bad thing in secret as some do who are good men in the name of religion or virtue or of god can do it and then not be letting their right hand know what their left hand is doing, no, such a one as I have been describing has it as a completed generalised conviction his own virtue as him and is himself completely constantly himself to himself in his being, has the complete thing of being important in all living from the completed realisation that he is completely a good noble generous human being and such a one never has any need of any secret action, such a one tells every one everything he does in living, any mean thing, any bad thing, anything, for always it is there completely in him that he did this thing and a good man could, would, does do that thing, he did that thing, he a good man who never does anything he should not be doing did this thing does something and so it is right for him to do that thing and he can tell it as a thing he was proud to do in living, everything he ever does in living is a thing he is proud to be telling to every one, he is completely a good man, he has no need of secret living, everything he is ever doing is a thing he can be boasting he was doing for he is completely a good man, he is not a good man in the name of religion of god or of his country or of his profession, he is a good man completely a good one to himself inside him, that is important being in him, that is his being to himself inside him, that is all being in him, he is the complete thing of a generalised conviction of virtuous being.
     All these kinds of ways then of having virtuous being, feeling, thinking, believing, doing, knowing inside in one are very interesting to be describing, studying, realising, understanding. It makes then one way of realising kinds in men and women the realising of the different ways different ones have virtuous feeling in them. I have already been describing some of them, I will now be describing others of them.
     Many have virtuous feeling from something inside them. Many need company to have it, this is very common. Many need a leader for it, this is in very many women and very many men. Some need drama to support it, some need lying to help it, some always need to leave out something in their telling anything to have it, some need always to leave out something in their feeling, in their doing, in their knowing, in their realising, in their believing, and they have it mostly in them, some need always to leave out pieces of everything they have in them to make for themselves the complete creation of virtuous being of themselves to themselves inside them. Many have virtuous feeling about something inside them. Some need drama to support it, some need lying to help it, some need company to feel it, some love it when they have it, some do not then love it, some hate it, some are it, some are burdened with it, some enjoy it, some never are very certain they really ever have it. Virtuous feeling in men and women is what I am now a little describing.
     Some then and these are now another kind of them from any I have been describing, some then have an ideal in them and always they poetically, romantically, dramatically, idealistically, sentimentally conceive themselves as doing that thing and they are not good at inventing and they are always doing everything and they leave out mostly everything in telling anything and they are always then very fond of telling this thing and so they have it in them to be idealistically, romantically, sentimentally, dramatically one thing and that is always in them an ideal thing. These then are such ones as would have it in them to be to themselves supposing it is a chaste one or a forgiving one that kind of one completely in them. Being with them, knowing them, some of them, it is climbing mountains for always when you are thinking you have heard the whole thing about the ideal they are to themselves in themselves to every one a new peak comes up behind and you begin again climbing, they are not really chaste then such a one yes that is certain they will sometime tell that thing but the claim then comes from a new kind of relation in them that is a real one of a completely chaste thing, they violate that one and then a new one is to them the complete thing of idealistic romantic chastity for them and always in their telling they leave out everything that can destroy the truth of the latest idealistic chastity in them, and then every one knows of that new violation and they are then creating a new idealism and again they are telling everything with leaving out in their telling, feeling, thinking, believing anything that shows another violation they have been making of their idealistic conception, and these then go on and they go on and everybody laughs about them that such a one should have idealistic romantic conceptions of chaste being and always this one has a new one and always this one then in telling is leaving out everything that tells the last violation of the latest idealistic romantic dramatic conception of chaste being and these then are lying but not by invention but by idealistic romantic dramatic sentimental omission and that is then very amusing and I know just now several of such a kind of them and everybody can laugh at them sometime.
     This happens very often with very many in loving, they are explaining that with that last one they were not real in loving, this they are now doing is really loving, always before they have not been really loving that is certain, this is very common in loving, it is very common very often in women, it is very common it is very often in men in their real feeling, in their real thinking, it is very common in men and women it is very common in loving in women and in men it is very common in loving often in men and women.
     Another form of having virtuous feeling is thinking what any one is doing is only a habit in them, and this is pretty common in men, quite common in men and in women.
     This way of feeling then is that not any one is really a bad one that is hardly any one, mostly every one does a thing because it is a habit and all that they need then is to change their habit to some other thing, some other way of doing that thing doing something and that one will be a good one. This is fairly common in men and women this way of having a feeling about virtue in other ones and in themselves then, in some it is stronger in beginning, when they are young, but in very many having this kind of conception it is in them all through their living. They are not actually ever changing the habits they have in them neither is
any
other one they are knowing but that does not affect their conviction that doing bad things is only a habit in themselves and in every one, and this is indeed quite common in men and in women.
     Another very common way of having virtuous feeling about oneself inside one is from having always the sense of being oneself inside one and so one oneself doing something does it, a wrong thing, with a different feeling from any other one and so it is not really then a wrong thing. This is very common even with many women many men who have not much personality in them, who do such very bad things as a regular way of living that no one not knowing would ever think it of them that they know it in them that they themselves inside them with the feeling of themselves inside them made it that the wrong things they were doing were not so bad as when other ones did that wrong thing. They are themselves inside them, they feel themselves inside them, each one of them and so then the things they are doing are personal things, not mercenary, vulgar things like those the other ones doing the same things are doing. This is very common in women, this is very common in men, each man mostly each woman mostly has a feeling of their own being, of being themselves inside them in them and that in itself makes each one doing something less bad in doing that thing than any other one doing that thing. A man painting, a painter exhibiting has such feeling. A painter was saying that exhibitions are so disgusting because just looking one sees that all the pictures are bad and that is disgusting, one's own pictures are hanging there and one looking at them and realising that they are bad things knows by remembering how each one of them happened to come to be not a good one and that then makes it alright for there are reasons that one's own pictures are not good ones while with all the others they are bad ones and that's all there is to them, there are not reasons to explain them to the feeling of any one looking at them and this is a very common way of having a conviction of virtue in them in a wonderfully large number of men and women.
     There are others who build it up in pieces the virtuous being the virtuous feeling in them, slowly they build it up in living, slowly carefully and always they are adding, piece alter piece is being added by them to make sometime pretty completely a whole thing and some of these are very good ones indeed in living and some are not such very good ones, but very many of them are very good ones in living. Some of such of them may have many other things in them that are not such good things in them but these do not affect the good thing of them, the good part of them, the virtuous being in them that these are steadily building up in them by steady adding, sometimes quickly sometimes slowly but always, mostly always, very often safely, completely safely in them. There are so many of them then men and women that have virtuous feeling in them, important being in them from virtuous feeling in them that it is a large undertaking to understand it and realise it and describe it and I am now not any longer beginning the doing this thing.
     There are some who have very much virtuous feeling virtuous being in them, some who have not so much virtuous being virtuous feeling in them, some who have very little, some who have hardly any and some who have not any interest in any such a thing.
     Some have virtuous feeling in them from having in them concrete and generalised virtue always really in them. Some have virtuous feeling in them from having in them concrete and generalised virtue almost always really in them. Some have virtuous feeling in them from having in them concrete and generalised virtue very often really in them. Some have virtuous feeling in them from having in them concrete and generalised virtue sometimes really in them. Some have virtuous feeling in them from having in them concrete and generalised virtue sometime really in them.