GERTRUDE STEIN Ultimate Collection: Novels, Short Stories, Poems, Plays, Essays & Memoirs. Gertrude Stein
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around them, and when the trees hit their own wood and made that queer sound that they got to have inside them. One can only get the real feeling of wind blowing in the country, in country living. Rain beating, and mud and snow and other ways of feeling the world outside them they can have in city country house living. Strong wind blowing needs real country living to give it a right feeling and this they all three of them each in their own way had then inside them. It was a very different way that each one of them had it in them, a different way too that their mother had it in her, that their father had it in him.
Real country living feeling all three of the Hersland children in their younger living had inside them, a real country living feeling. It was to them then in their feeling real country living, it was to them then earning a living in the country way. It was so that they then felt it inside them. In their later living it was different in each one of them. In Martha this being part of the country village living was not in her later living inside her to her feeling but it was inside her in her being. In Alfred there was in his later living nothing of this in him, not in his being not in his feeling; he was of his mother then, the feeling she had had in her was what was in him then, the being important to himself inside her, the having in her the right rich being which was the natural being in her. In the younger brother David this early living was made by him into him as he made all his living in him, he made it a part of him, was something in him to be made over inside him to be a part of the whole of him. As I was saying Mrs. Hersland never had inside her country living feeling nor city living feeling. She did not have such a feeling in her any more than the governesses and seamstresses and servants who lived in the house with her. She had a feeling of being part of the rich right being that was natural to her. She had always in her the feeling of rich city country house living with servants and dependents in the house with her, with near her, for her, poor queer kind of people who were employed by her, who were to her different from her, who were with her to her as they had need of her; she felt herself inside her important to herself in her with such people always around her. Always more and more she felt herself important inside her. This came to be in her at its strongest inside her in her relation to a governess, Madeleine Wyman. Later it came to be less and less inside her. Later she was weakening inside her and her feeling of importance to herself inside her went out in her. She broke down a little, later, into weakness inside her. She more and more then had no strength in her, she more and more then was not important to her husband who was beginning then to have troubles in him that left him nothing of the tender feeling she had once been for him, she was less and less important to her children who were then so big inside them that she was then always lost among them. More and more then in her weakening she was not of them and superior to them the servants in the house with them and the people in the small houses near them. More and more she was weakening then, the feeling of herself inside her died out of her then. Her husband never thought about her then, she was lost then among her children who were then themselves inside in each one of them and fighting it out with all the world around them, she was not part of their world then, she was lost among them. She was not any longer then important to the servants in the house then. There was not any longer then a governess or a seamstress in the house with them. The people in the small houses near them were always less and less part of the daily living of Martha, Alfred and young David then. Mr. Hersland was the only one important to them then and so in every way the feeling of herself inside her was no longer kept up in her. Soon it all died out of the inside of her, she was weakening then and when all the troubles came to all of them in their later living she died away and left them and they all soon forgot that she had ever been important to them as a wife, a mother, a mistress living among them. One never forgot her in her later living and this was the governess Madeleine Wyman. With her had come to Mrs. Hersland to have it strongest inside her in all the living from the beginning to the ending of her, it had come to her to have in her relation to Madeleine Wyman and the family of Madeleine Wyman the strongest time in her of having a feeling of herself inside, of being important to herself in her.
Mrs. Hersland's living in the ten acre place with a husband, three children, always with a governess, a seamstress and servants in the house with her, and with, for her, poor people around her, was the important part of living to her, the part of living where she was nearest in her to being important to herself inside her as an individual power not only as part of the rich being which was natural to her.
She never knew it in her that it was different inside her than it would have been in her if she had lived in Bridgepoint with her family around her and the natural way of being for her always in her. Slowly the different kind of feeling of herself inside her grew to be more and more in her. It was at its strongest in her in her relation to the governess Madeleine Wyman and her struggles with the family of the Wymans who wanted to interfere with her. It was strong in her when she went a little later to visit at Bridgepoint and had her family around her. She was then herself inside her and that made a kind of a princess of her and they, her family, never knew it about her, she never knew it in her, that it was different inside her because of her having been cut off from the way of living that was the natural way of living for her. This was the end of the strongest time of being important to herself inside her. Then began the weakening of this in her, then began the weakening of the health in her, of herself inside her, of the whole of her. More and more then she broke down into weakness inside her and that was the beginning of her ending and she went on then slowly weakening to the end of her. She died away then and they all soon forgot her. The governess Madeleine Wyman was the only one to keep it in her that Mrs. Hersland once had been strong to feel herself inside her. Madeleine Wyman was married then and had a successful enough life then but always Mrs. Hersland was the most important thing, to her, that had ever been in her.
In their younger living all the three children Martha, Alfred and David, all of them had it in them to be more or less afraid of their father when he was angry or even playing with them. They never knew then how the anger in him might drive him, they never knew when they were playing with him when it might change in him to an outburst and then they never knew how far this burst would carry him and so like most women and all children, even when they would stand up against him, the man near them, they had in their younger living, all of them, more or less fear in them. This was not in all of them then a conscious feeling. They had each one then more or less of fear in them always when with him, when he would be connected to them in their feeling, in their actual doing. They had not then this about them in them as a conscious feeling then each one of them, they did not have then in them while they were connected to him a conscious feeling of more or less fear in them until after each time with him, then they would have more or less in them a conscious feeling in them of the fear that they had always more or less then in them with him. This was more or less true then of all three of them. Later in their living when it had come to be with him that he was all full up with impatient feeling, that then there was nothing in him that was not impatient feeling, then they had not any longer much fear of him, they knew it then about him that he was filled up with impatient feeling, they knew then that the anger in him never would drive him to any last act against them. More and more then as impatient feeling was all that there was of him, less and less then did they have in them any fear of him, more and more then they could stand up against him and he would always give way before them. Martha had always a little left in her even in his latest living of this fear of him, Alfred and David then had no fear of him, they could stand up to him and win out against him with not any fear inside them of where his anger might drive him. This was true of them in his later living, when his wife was no longer in him, when nothing was in him but impatient feeling. Later it went further with him, he was shrunk away then from the outside of him, he had impatient feeling in him but it was then weakness in him he had not enough of that then to fill him, he needed others then to fill him, he was then shrunk away from the outside of him. He needed then a woman to fill him and that was the last part of his living. Martha was then with him, she had come back out of her trouble to him, she was then there taking care of him, she had still a little fear in her of him, she had not then any power in him, she could not fill him, other women did it for him, and so he kept on to his ending.
There are many kinds of men and there are many millions made of each kind of them. The many millions of each kind of them have in them each one more or less of that which makes such a kind of them. Of the kind that Mr. David Hersland was he had a great deal of it in him, later it all turned into impatient feeling inside him, later then it became