The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (50 page)

     There are many ways then for women to like men, there are many ways for men to like women. Some like the other one for the health in them, for the life in them, some for other things in them, some need many kinds of things to content them in those they want to have near them, some need very little in them. For some health in another one, for some youth in another one is enough to content them. Some women want a man to be florid and have a reddish beard when he has one, some want him brown with a black one, some then want health, some want youth in those near them, for some one thing for some other things mean health in those near them. There are many men and many women who want to see people having lots of health, near them. For some men one kind for some men quite a different kind is to them a fine figure of a woman. Many men and many women want those near them to have strongly in them the feeling and appearance of healthy being, many men say it of women and of trees and other things near them, that's a healthy looking one, that is in such of them the highest kind of commendation. Mr. Hersland was such a one. Not in the woman he needed for a wife for him, she was pretty and dark, and healthy enough looking but that was not in her a striking thing. Mr. Hersland wanted his children to be healthy looking, in choosing the second governess he chose her for this being in her. In his middle living he needed this kind of fine healthiness in women to content him, later he needed a more active being in them, they had then to be energetic enough around him to fill him in where he had been shrunk away then from the outside of him. In his middle living then he wanted a woman to have a good figure and to be healthy looking. The second governess had been such a one and Mr. Hersland always had a certain pleasure in having her in the house with them. Later when she had married the baker he sometimes on his way home would stop to eat a cake and talk to her, tell her about what was the best way to give milk to the baby, to keep strong and not to need a doctor, what kind of a doctor she should have to take care of her, what was the right way for her to do to content her husband and save money and never have any trouble to come to her. He always gave advice to her; he ate a cake, he told her whether she was getting fatter or thinner, how to get thinner when she was getting fatter and later after she had had another baby and was always looking dragged and getting thinner, he would tell her what she should do to get fatter. He always gave advice to her, later always about her doctor and that she had a good man to be a husband to her a good baker and later when she was getting thinner what she should do to get fatter. He always gave advice to her. When she was beginning to be a governess to them he had talked to her about education and his children, later he mostly talked to her about eating and marrying, and gave advice to her about how to keep in condition.
     With Madeleine Wyman it was a different matter. She was not a healthy woman to give pleasure simply by having health in her, and a fine figure. She was healthy but not the kind to make one feel it in her. She had a trim figure, she was not pretty, nor ugly either, she was pleasant and bright and had some energy. With her Mr. Hersland could always talk about education in a different way from that in which he talked with the second governess who had married the baker. Madeleine Wyman was young and had understanding in her, she was young and ready to try to carry out his theories in the way he wanted from her. She wanted to educate the three children in music, french and German, gymnastics, swimming, and with at the same time good American public school training. With the first governess it had been different. She always had listened to Mr. Hersland but she had a real governess being in her and she did what this governess being in her demanded from her. She was polite and intelligent but she had real governess being in her. After Mr. Hersland had gotten through telling her all the advantages of European education over American and she had politely agreed with him, there was nothing for him to say to her. He became indifferent later about telling this to her and so she had no existence for him although whenever he was conscious of her he had respect for the genuine governess being in her, for her being a thorough musician, for her really knowing french and German.
     Madeleine Wyman then was a good person to listen to him. Better than the other two to him. Personally she was pleasant to him, she was not so large as an impression personally on him of agreeable healthy feeling as the second governess had been. She was more satisfying as a listener to him. Not so satisfying for advising, really she was more important to Mrs. Hersland than she was to him. She really had more advice from Mrs. Hersland than from him. He liked to talk to her but it was not a personal feeling. She had understanding in her, she was young and ready to carry out his feeling about education but really she was not very personal for him, she was very personal for Mrs. Hersland, she was to Mrs. Hersland a part of Mrs. Hersland's most important living. They had then for each other these two women very important being. This is now a history of them.
     With Madeleine Wyman living in the same house with them, Mrs. Hersland had in her her feeling of being to herself inside her strongest in her whole living, stronger than later when she went to Bridgepoint to visit her family and was like a princess to them, a very rich woman from the far country and in her feeling for them a part of them but to them and really to herself then not a part of rich right living; more important than earlier when she met Mr. Hersland and her marrying was then her important being. She had never then at any time in her living so completely to herself then a realization, a feeling of herself to herself, a being in herself to her own feeling important in her being, not from doing, not from feeling, not from being, not from having, not from anything in her living or her being but from being to herself in herself then an important person as she had then in her middle living with the third governess in the house with them. Some one needed her, not for their living or their feeling, but needed her for their self-creation. And so, it was in her middle living with Madeleine Wyman in the house with them that she had in her really individual being.
     As I was saying the children later had a sore feeling that Madeleine Wyman owned their mother's early living. They had a sore feeling because they were so, cut off from part of their own being.
     Madeleine Wyman made Mrs. Hersland really an attacking being and this was the most stupid being she had in her in her living. Mrs. Hersland then, was important to Madeleine Wyman to give to her individual being, with her feeling and living in her being to make for herself a being. Mrs. Hersland then had from Madeleine Wyman individual being, from Madeleine Wyman's living her early being. This is now again a history of them.
     The Wyman family was foreign American. The mother was always pretty foreign. No one of their children excepting perhaps the second one Louise ever knew very much what their father had in him. Their children did not really know much about what was in either of them, the father or the mother in the house with them. The old people were too foreign to them for them ever to really know anything about them. The second one Louise, Madeleine was the eldest of the children, the second one Louise was not foreign in her being but she was in some way nearer in understanding to the old folks who were very foreign perhaps not understanding to her feeling, but understanding to anyone to every one who saw her with them. There seemed more connection between her and her father and her mother, there was not any connection to anybody's feeling between the foreign old woman and the old man, and anything in their living, there was not much connection to anybody's feeling between the old man and the old woman, perhaps they were not so very old then, they lived a long time after and so they could not have been so very old then, there was then to everybody who saw them not much connection between the foreign woman and the foreign man who was a little vague to every one, there was only the connection between that neither of them seemed to be connected with any other one. Later when one knew the children better and still later when no one any longer saw any of them and only remembered them, one then could reconstruct the foreign father and mother out of the children and so could come to an understanding of them, a realisation that they had been alive then and human. Later then there will be a reconstruction of them, not from any impression from them but from what their children had in them as nature in them and so the parents will come to be made soon to us out of the memory of the children as later one remembered them, the children when one no longer saw them. The mother and the father then were to every one then disconnected from every one, a little less from the second daughter Louise, she had some connection with them then to every one who knew them. Later there will be more description of this connection of hers with them. The Herslands had never then very much impression of them, not indeed then or even later in their living, of any of the Wyman family except Madeleine, although they later, especially the three children and Mr. Hersland some too then, Mrs. Hersland was weakening then and less then in everybody's living, came to know the others of them the two sisters Louise and Helen and the brother Frank very well in their later living. They never however any one of them, the three Hersland children came to any realisation of them until later they remembered them and reconstructed them and realised them and then reconstructed and realised the foreign parents from a reconstruction from their reconstructed children. Every one had then when they knew them an impression that the daughter Louise knew then what kind of woman her mother the old foreign woman was and what a kind of a man she had as a husband but no one ever knew how they came to have this feeling that this Louise had such a knowledge of them, that she had such understanding. This is now a history of the Wyman family and the living and the being in all of the six of them, the mother and the father and the four children, Madeleine, Louise, Frank, and Helen. Now there will be a history of Mrs. Hersland to them. Later there will be new history of them in the history of each one of the three Hersland children. Now then for the six of them, the mother and the father and the four children Madeleine and Louise and Frank and Helen, and Mrs. Hersland and a little Mr. Hersland to them. First there will be the impression every one had of them then and the history of their living and then there will be a reconstruction of the four of them from the memory of the impression of them and then a reconstruction of the father and the mother out of the reconstructed four children. This is now then a history of them and of Mrs. Hersland and a little of Mr. Hersland to them. Later there will be a history of the three Hersland children with them.
     Madeleine Wyman stayed with the Herslands about three years and then there was a struggle for her by her family who wanted her to marry John Summer who wanted to marry her but was not very anxious to have her, and she had not about it any very strong feeling but she liked it with the Herslands as she was then living and she did not care very much about marrying. Later she married him and he was later then a more or less sick man with his own ways in him of eating and doctoring. He was a rich man and her family wanted she should marry him. She had no objection then, only she liked it so very well being with the Herslands then, she did not want any changing. There was no way to really convince her family that she was very well content to stay with the Herslands then, Mrs. Hersland tried to convince them. Once to convince them she paid double wages to Madeleine Wyman and had Madeleine a dress made then by Mary Maxworthing and Mabel Linker who made Mrs. Hersland's dresses for visiting, to convince the Wyman family that Madeleine was best off with the Herslands then and should stay with them. There was then about three months of sharp struggle between the Wymans and Mrs. Hersland and Madeleine and a little Mr. Hersland with them. Then Madeleine had to leave them, the parents, that is the whole family of them, the Wyman family, would not listen to reason or to higher wages even or to a dress in the most fashionable way of dress-making. John Summer was content to have Madeleine stay where she was then. Sometime he wanted to marry her but there was no hurry about it for him. He had plenty of life before him to be married in. Later Madeleine went home and later then she married him and later then they adopted a little girl, they could not have any children, and later then they gave up this one, and later then he took to ways of eating and ways of doctoring and then he was no longer working and they were rich enough then to try every kind of way of eating and travelling and doctoring and she was faithful to him and he died then and this was many years after and Mrs. Hersland and Mr. Hersland had long been dead then, but Mrs. Wyman was still living, and now there is a history of all the Wyman family, of the six of them of the father and mother and Madeleine and Louise and Frank and Helen and of Mrs. Hersland to them and a little of Mr. Hersland to them. This is now the beginning of the knowing of the Herslands and the Wymans, this is now the beginning of Madeleine Wyman and her governessing.
     This is now as remembering the Wyman family and reconstructing the children from remembered parts of them and reconstructing the parents from the reconstructed children, this is what the Wyman family was then. This is now a history of them. They were, none of them, people to make a strong impression. To every one then the second daughter was more of the father and mother who were very foreign than the other three children. No one knew quite why this was true of her and of them. Every one who knew them felt it in them. This is now a history of all six of them, of Mr. Wyman and Mrs. Wyman and Madeleine, Louise and Frank and Helen Wyman, of the nature in each one of them, of the living that came to each one of them.
     The mother and the father, Mr. and Mrs. Wyman were not so old then as they seemed to be to every one who knew them then. They were very foreign, that made them then with grown up children a very old man and a very old woman. They were not so very old then for they lived a long time after, longer than Mr. and Mrs. Hersland who were young then to them. Mr. and Mrs. Wyman were old then to every one and mostly no one knew much about them. They were foreign now in one's later living by remembering their children one can reconstruct them and know what they were then. Mr. Wyman then had a nature in him a dependent independent earthy instrument nature in him and all being was vague in him, Mrs. Wyman had independent dependent being and it was concentrated being but not very efficient being, it was enough to make some attacking in her being, it was enough to make such attacking pretty persistent and sometimes insinuating, rarely winning but very often annoying. She was not efficient in her being but she was fairly insistent in attacking, sometimes insinuating almost hypocritical in her kind of attacking but on the whole not very efficient in her living, on the whole not very often winning. She could be persistent, insinuating, and annoying. She had some winning in persisting with Mrs. Hersland, her daughter for six months had double wages given to her and a new dress made by Mabel Linker and Mary Maxworthing and then after all she got her daughter to leave the Herslands so that later she would marry John Summer. But all this was not really winning, for Madeleine always intended to marry John Summer and Summer always intended to marry her, so really all that Mrs. Wyman had as winning in her was to be annoying to Mrs. Hersland and to give to her a sense of struggling, and to have had her daughter Madeleine get for six months more money then she was earning and a dress made by Mabel Linker and Mary Maxworthing. As I was saying Mr. Wyman had earthy dependent independent instrument nature. He was very vague in his nature. His son Frank was like him. Madeleine in efficiency was like her mother, in her kind of nature like her father. Louise was like her mother altogether excepting that there was less to her nature, less insinuating attacking in her being. Later there will be a history of her. She had some connection, to those who knew her, with her father and her mother. The son Frank was vague like his father and like him in his nature, only he was younger and had more beginning in him and more chance of later keeping going than his father had had who was foreign. Helen was even more spread and vague than her father ever had been, with her mother's nature in her. Later in her living queer things happened to her.