The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (99 page)

     Every one to me just now is in pieces to me. That is to say every one is to me just now as pieces to me. That is to say that each complete one is only as a piece to me, that all there is of each one at anytime in them gives to me a feeling of pieces not of a whole thing, that is to say I am having just now with each one I am knowing or remembering a feeling an emotion from them as if they were each one not a whole thing. I have this perhaps not altogether with every one but I have it just now with a good many of them a good many that I am knowing, knowing now or remembering now and most of the time now I have such a feeling. A little it comes to me I am certain from my realisation that many of them are not completely thinking or feeling the way a complete one of their kind of them would be thinking or feeling. They are thinking and feeling in pieces then now to me to my feeling just now in my emotion and that makes of them to me pieces of being, makes all there is of them of each one, not whole ones, this is very strongly in me just now in my feeling, very very strongly in me, men and women very many of them those I am knowing those I am remembering, not all of them, I do not say that it is true of all of them even just now in my feeling but very many a great many of them are to me just now in pieces to me. There are pieces then and that is whole being, there is a piece then and that is the whole being of some one, they may be, such a one may be completely of one kind of being, but it is only a piece of such a kind of being as that one is in being. It is not such a very joyous feeling, having the emotion of having every one as a piece to one, it does make of everything a thing without ending and all the time then there is not any use of anything keeping on going. Why should anything any one keep on going if not ever at any time anything any one will be a whole one, what is the use of anything or everything keeping on going if not at any time I will not be having a sensation that any one anything will be a whole one, once every one sometime was a whole one, now mostly every one is a piece of a one, not all the being as a complete one and yet every one has their own being in them and putting all of each kind of them together to make a whole one can not be to me a satisfaction, cannot give to me any real satisfaction can not be a satisfactory way in my feeling of having completion of having anything or any one a whole one cannot give to me any reason why the world should keep on being, there is not any reason if in repeating nothing is giving to me a sensation of a completed one, I have then this in me now and mostly every one I am knowing or remembering is to me just now a piece of a kind of being and every one is themselves inside them, that is always to my feeling certain and so then feeling each one is a piece of a kind of being and always then feeling each one is entirely existing so that each one is not a part of any whole thing I cannot to myself have any very real satisfaction from getting together all the ones there are of a kind of them, to make a whole one, that is, not to my feeling, that cannot give to me an emotion of satisfaction, that is not to my feeling satisfying and so then I am not feeling each one is sometime to me a whole one, no then no, I am now feeling that mostly all of them every one I am knowing every one I am remembering is to me a piece of being and so then there is not any use in the world going on existing so that every one can keep on with repeating a piece of being, not any use at all then to me to my feeling, not any use then really to any one and this is now then the real state of feeling I am now having.
     Alfred Hersland is to me a piece of being, he is not in me a whole one, this is certain, mostly every one is to me a piece of being, every one has their own being in them, Alfred Hersland has his own being in him, alright, I know it of every one, I know it that every one has their own being in them, I know it and always I feel it, I always feel it and I always know it, every one has their own being in them yes every one, every kind of a one, every one that ever was or is or will be living, yes, alright, I know it of every one that every one has their own being in them, Alfred Hersland had his own being in him, yes every one has their own being in them, yes that is alright, I know that of them, I know that very well of them, I know every one has their own being in them, I feel it of them, I know that always in every one, always in each one, always of every one, yes I know that each one has their own being in them and I am saying that mostly every one is a piece of being, not a whole one in them and so then there is not any use of the world going on for any one, and there is not any way of making a complete one of any being by putting together all of some kinds of them all of any kind of them for each one has their own being in them and so after all there is not any way of making a whole one. Every one to me just now is as a piece to me, that is to say each one mostly is not a complete one of anything to my feeling, each one just now to my feeling is a piece of something and that is to me very certain by my very strongly realising in every one the way they are not thinking, feeling a complete thing of their kind in feeling and thinking. Now then Alfred Hersland is a piece of being to me and now I will tell of it the way I feel it in me, the way I feel him and every one just now in me.
     Alfred Hersland had a kind of being in him that in some who have it in them makes of them very good ones, some not such very good ones. This is in a way true of every kind there is of being. Of the kind of one that Alfred Hersland was in his being they range from very good ones through to pretty bad ones but this is true of every kind there is of men and women. Alfred had it in him to have his being in him so that it was a little passionate in him, not very affectionate in him, not so as to be very good in him, not really ever very bad in him, sometimes as aspiration in him, more or less as ambitious in him, sometimes as virtuous and didactic in him. The kind of being he had in him was of a kind of being that in some having it in them makes of them devout in religion, makes of them mystic in religion, so as to let themselves be absorbed, all existing, some of them having this kind of being in them have religion in them but then it is like that in the grandfather of Alfred Hersland, Mr. Hissen. Some having this kind of being in them are meek enough in living and yet a little dominating in family living and are just enough in thinking and impersonal in feeling, and some of such of them need to have as a wife to them some one very vibratingly existing to give to them enough stimulation to make them keep really alive inside them. All these then are of the resisting, the dependent independent kind of them. Some of them have the being in them very murkily passionate inside and some of these then are trying to engulf every one near them to be lost inside them, to be swallowed by them and some of them are not interested in very many persons near them but some of them they need to have engulfed by them and so then Alfred Hersland was of the kind of them the resisting dependent independent kind of them, the kind that own those they need for loving. Many of such of them do not really in their living need any one for loving, in a way Mr. Hissen the old man important in religion, being inside him all there was of religion was such a one of this kind of them. Alfred Hersland then to my feeling has being in him as pieces only of being, he is himself inside him, he has being in him, he has really living in him, every one has real being to me in them but as I am saying very many to me now are pieces of being and yet they are themselves inside them, I know that of them, I know that in them, I know that in myself with them, and so then to me then just now then in my feeling, very much mostly every one is as pieces of living, pieces of being, to me then now to my feeling, pieces everywhere of something are existing and repeating, repeating of pieces of something and yet whole ones are inside them are repeating all around me as living, feeling, being, thinking, existing and in a way then not whole ones and not a part of anything because they are one each one all there is of them and so then just now to my feeling it is a little fragmentary all there is of living and keeping going is only in everything because it is not ended yet and that is then my feeling just now inside me and Alfred Hersland is to me a real being but not having completion in the sense of a whole meaning, everything then every one, that is mostly every one mostly everything is just now to my feeling as pieces of being, pieces alive completely inside them and so always repeating as a whole one but having not meaning as a whole one. Alfred Hersland then was a kind of them he had a kind of being in him that was in him as more or less engulfing, somewhat passionate, not very bad, certainly not very good, engulfing resisting dependent independent being, needing to own those he would need for loving, very often needing some one poignantly alive to influence him.
     Of the kind of one that Alfred Hersland was in his being they range from very good ones through to pretty bad ones, from very tyrannical ones to very just ones, from very good ones through to pretty bad ones, from very religious ones to completely skeptical ones, from very dominant ones to very meek ones, from very passionate ones to completely indifferent ones and all of these in their living are of the resisting kind of them the dependent independent kind of them, those of them should have then needing to own those they need for loving. Alfred Hersland then had in him to be a little passionate and engulfing, a little meek and a little tyrannical in living, a little didactic and superior in aspiring, and certainly not really a very good one and in religion mostly not believing and yet not being really completely certain that to be dead was to be really completely a dead one, he had it a little in him to be a little going to be saving himself by a little religion in himself or in somebody very near to him whom in a way then he was owning.
     Of the kind of one that Alfred Hersland was in his being, the kind of them men and women having in them such kind of being range from very good ones through to pretty bad ones, have all kinds of mixtures in them, have every kind of way of living are many of them pretty successful in living, some very successful and some pretty miserably failing, some pretty steady with the being in them, some pretty intermittent and some meek and some very weak in being and all this is true of every kind there is of men and women.
     I am thinking now of six of them that have such a kind of nature in them like that in Alfred Hersland and these have it very differently in them than he had it in him and then there was his grandfather Mr. Hissen of whom I have written. There was one and he was not very successful not very not successful in living, he was successful enough in living and he had it in him to be impersonal and just and kindly enough with mostly every one, and he had not any engulfing passionate nature in him, not at all any such a kind of this kind of being in him, and he was almost altogether certain that to be dead was to be really a dead one and he did not altogether completely like it such a feeling and he could be a little not certain of it inside him though mostly altogether he was certain that to be dead is to be really truly a dead one and he liked it very well that his wife who could be making lively living feeling was very certain that to be dead was not at all to be a dead one and he liked it then that she was such a kind of one and mostly then this one was successful enough in living, and kindly and not meek and not given to aggression and master in his own house by patient overseeing and successful enough in living by patient persisting and this then is all there is now to be written of the living this one had in him. This one then was of the resisting kind of them that have it in them not to be engulfing, not to be aggressive nor meek in their resisting winning, to be needing to be owning those they need for loving but to be only loving one human being, to be kindly but impersonal really with every other one. That is all then of the being of one of the six of them.
     Another of the six of them was one having it in him to have a good deal in him of the engulfing passionate being of his kind of them but the being in him was not really ever in action, it never amounted to any more in him than to be a little wiggling in him and that was all then, he wanted it to be in action, he wanted to be passionate, and succeeding, and aspiring, and despairing, he tried it always all his living, he was always a little scaring and filling with hope his family for the despair and the possible activity in succeeding in living in him and mostly then nothing ever happened and he came as near in his living as a man can come to failing who is not completely failing in living. He loved a very pale anaemic woman but he never came to marrying, he was always a man considered as perhaps promising successful living and so it went on and on and he was an older one and still he himself and a little some other ones had still a hopeful feeling that this one would sometime be really succeeding, would really be doing something. This then has been a very little description of another one of the six of them.
     Another one of them had the passionate murky engulfing being in him in a completely concentrated form that made him active, sensitive, amusing and successful, quite successful in living. He was always loving but it never was a trouble to him, he was so active he never was knowing that he was engulfing the other one, that he owned those he needed for loving. He was a very active, sensitive, amusing, successful enough person and the murky engulfing passionate resisting being that made him was so concentrated in him that he was a compactly existing being and in a way not interested in anything or any one he was not just then really needing. He was a very nice, a nice, amusing, sensitive, successful enough one of this kind of them, the passionate engulfing resisting kind of them, in this one this being was quite a concentrated pleasant thing. This is then all there will now be written of this one.
     Another one had it in him to be completely certain in all his acting and his feeling and his living that to be dead is to be a dead one and so this one must keep on being a live one and must have everything he can be seizing to keep by him and always this one in his talking and his thinking and his feeling was very certain that he was very certain that to be dead was not to be a dead one and if it were, what then, a really noble man would not let it effect him and he was most certainly such a one. This one then had this being, the resisting being I have been describing as not really in him as engulfing as not really in him not engulfing, as not really in him as passion and yet as just enough in him as passion to give him a little something that made it that mostly one would not trust him and yet that for very many he had some real attraction. This one had some aggression of resisting being in him, this one was quite successful enough in living.