The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress (11 page)

     Being cut off from the simple rich ordinary way of living never gave her any feeling. It was not being cut off with any sense of losing, it was always there existing, in her and for her, this kind of living and it was not important to her feeling. It was as if one could ever be thinking about the different kinds of air in different parts of the world where one happened to be living, the atmosphere of well to do living was to her as the air she was breathing, it was always there she could not feel it important in her feeling or her thinking, breathing was there, one did not know it as important to one's feeling until one was in some way sick and it stopped or made hard one's breathing, but so long as one was strong and living one went on like everybody else with one's breathing. And so it was with Mrs. Hersland and well to do living, she could not feel it to be important in her feeling whether it was in the rich part of Gossols that they were living, or in Bridgepoint, or in the part of Gossols where no other rich people were living. Always she was of well to do being, with a good rich husband and nice children and when she wanted to have it simple and expensive clothing. The sense of belonging to this kind of living could never give her any kind of important feeling. Her husband David Hersland with the queer nature of him might have an important feeling coming to him from just breathing, that feeling could come to him from the singular nature of him, from his being as big as all the world in his beginning, but to an ordinary gentle little mother woman there could never come such a feeling, this well to do living could only come to be important to her in her feeling if she could ever come to it through a losing, by their money going or by their losing position by some wrong doing, and such a kind of losing it could never come to Mrs. Hersland to ever think of as coming to them.
     And so visiting and being, well to do living and her children, these never gave her a strong feeling of being important inside her through them, it was only through her husband and the governess and seamstresses and servants and dependents that she could ever have an individual kind of feeling.
     It was queer that her children were to her like well to do living, not important to her feeling.
     As I was saying David Hersland had made a decent fortune even before he had left Bridgepoint. He had made enough money to give his wife and children a good position. And so when they first came to Gossols where he was to make for himself a great fortune they could afford to live in as good a hotel as was then there existing.
     Things began very well in their far western living. Martha and Alfred were then very young children. David the youngest had not yet been born to them. Here Mrs. Hersland had been at first a little lonesome.
     Mrs. Hersland had left friends and family feeling behind her. Here in Gossols it would have been natural for her to find other people to continue with her the well to do living which was the only right way of being to her.
     They lived for a year in that part of Gossols where all the rich people were living.
     Here she had her first important feeling. Here she met a Miss Sophie Shilling and her sister Pauline Shilling and their mother old Mrs. Shilling.
     Always Mrs. David Hersland had been a right part of a right kind of living. Not that she had not often had strong feeling, not that she did not have dignity in herself and in her family in her feeling, sometimes she had an angry stubborn feeling, sometimes with her sisters or her mother and later when they came together sometimes with Mr. David Hersland who was to be married to her. Sometimes it was a hurt feeling that made her sad not angry when any bad thing happened to her, sometimes it was a hurt feeling that made her a little bitter. All this had been important feeling to her, sometimes it had made a power of her but it did not give to her an important feeling to herself inside her. It was not apart in her from the feeling of herself to her as of the right well to do living that had made her and which was the only right way of being for her.
     Old Mrs. Shilling and her daughter Sophie Shilling and her other daughter Pauline Shilling, first gave to her the feeling of being important to herself inside her, important, apart in her, from right being, right acting, and the dignity of decent family living with good eating being the mother of nice children the wife of a good well to do man, and all in simple and expensive clothing.
     This family of old Mrs. Shilling and the two daughters with her gave to Mrs. Hersland and the gentle dignity she always had inside her as part of the family she belonged to, gave to her a sense of a new power that was apart in her from the dignity of right being that she had always had around her. It was apart in her this sense of a new kind of power that she had with Mrs. Shilling and the fat daughter Sophie Shilling and the thin pretty dull queer always getting into trouble Pauline Shilling, it was apart in her from the dignity of right living that she had always had inside her. It was the fat daughter Sophie Shilling who was the new kind of friend to her, that gave her the sense of being important to herself inside her. Sophie Shilling made a new kind of friendship for her and it was a new sense that Mrs. Hersland had then inside her, different from all that she had always had in her, different from the right living that had made her.
     All the Hissen people had it strongly inside them, the family way of good living. They were all in their natural way of family thinking gentle cheerful little men and women. They lived in their natural way of being, without any strong ambition. It was enough for them to hold to their tradition, the dignity and beauty of right living and right thinking, they never needed to go out to find ambition or excitement in their living, they had excitement and dignity inside them from their family and the gentle pride that made them; that, sometimes, came in sparkling, sometimes in angry flashes from them but mostly they were hurt not angry when any bad thing happened to them. They lived in their natural way of being without any strong ambition or excitement, they were each in their little circle joyful in the present, they lived and died in mildness and contentment.
     They had never any one of them an important feeling of themselves inside, them to arise of itself from within them. Such a kind of important feeling would not be in them in the way of living it was natural to any one of them to be having. Mrs. Fanny Hersland never would have had such a feeling if she had lived on in Bridgepoint, going on always with the right kind of being, she would often have had an angry feeling, sometimes with her family, or her husband, or for them when things happened to them to worry them, and sometimes it would be a hurt feeling that would lead to bitter biting talking, sometimes it would be a hurt feeling that would make her sad not angry when any bad thing happened to them and always it would be she who had the feeling and the dignity and the good well to do husband and the simple and expensive clothing, and the nice children and she was the mother of them, but with all this strong feeling, with this being proud or angry or sad or stubborn or happy in her feeling, she would never have that kind of important feeling that she learned to be having in Gossols, first with Sophie Shilling as a beginning and then in Gossols later in the ten acre place where they were always staying cut off from being really a part of the right way of living.
     She would have been a part, if she had gone on with her natural living, she would have been a part of the right way of Hissen being; she could have been in her feeling angry or sad or stubborn or happy, or biting in her talking, or hurt when any bad thing happened to them, she could have all this in her feeling and yet not have that kind of sense of importance to herself inside her that comes with the individual being.
     The little religious father who had made them all, all his children, he could not make others not living with him feel him, the little religious father who had made all of his children feel him had such an important feeling inside him, it was his religion gave it to him, it did not arise of itself from within him. It was only being as he felt himself, all there was of religion, could give him such a feeling of being important to himself inside him. He could make all his children feel him, he could in a way make them fearful of him and the religion in him, and all the religion was of him and he was in himself all there was of religion, and so it was that he had the important feeling inside in him, but this did not make any but his children feel him, it did not arise of itself inside him and he could not make any one who did not live with him feel it in him.
     The little dreary mother with her trickling kind of weeping that she had every moment in her living, even, as when it sometimes happened, she was laughing, this dreary little trickling woman had with her sadness in religion and in her trickling weeping that kept on always wetting all the sorrow there could be in living, this trickling dreary little Mrs. Hissen, who wept out all the sorrow for her children, had in her an important kind of being that was almost an important feeling, and this almost an important feeling did not come to her as in her husband from religion, it arose up inside in her with her trickling weeping.
     Almost it was really an important feeling and it was the having too, such an almost important feeling that made her daughter Mrs. Hersland have really such a feeling when it came to her there in Gossols to have a, for her, not natural way of living, and it first came as a beginning with the old lady Mrs. Shilling and her fat daughter Sophie Shilling and the other daughter Pauline Shilling.
     With all the other Hissen men and women there mostly was not such an important feeling inside in them, only with the oldest of them who had religion as the father had inside him, and with her it was as with him, the important feeling did not arise of itself inside her, and only her children could feel it in her, the way of being important that being all there was of religion gave their mother as a power over them in her.
     Mostly the Hissen men and women the children of the father and religion and the trickling dreary mother who hardly knew how she came to make them, in all these Hissen little men and women there was never very much of such important feeling. It was only way off there in Gossols, shut off from a lively feeling of well to do living, shut off from her friends and family feeling, that Fanny Hissen, Mrs. Hersland, could find in herself a really important feeling.
     All the little Hissen people had very strong family feeling. All together they were important to themselves in their feeling. Not that they did not each one alone have strong feeling and each one of course had in them a different way from all the others of them of being loving or having an angry feeling. They all of course had in them their own individual way of thinking and of doing only they never had inside them each one for himself the real important feeling.
     Some of them had often a very angry feeling, some had fierce tempers and sometimes bitter biting ways of talking, some had very stubborn ways inside them, and some had it mostly in them to be only hurt not angry when any bad thing happened to them. Yes they had each one of them their own way of feeling thinking and of doing but they had not any of them inside in them an important feeling of themselves inside them as the father had in religion and as the dreary mother almost had with her continuous way of trickling crying.
     Some of the children, as I was saying, had it a little in them. The oldest daughter from her dull stubborn religion that was for her all there really was of living had it in herself and it gave her power over her young children. One, a little younger, Fanny, Mrs. Hersland, had from a, to her, not a natural way of living, and from having had it strongest of them all from the beginning, the almost important feeling that the mother had with her constant trickling, from being cut off from a lively feeling of right being, she had almost before ending a really important feeling. And one next to the youngest of them had a little such a feeling from almost an individual way of thinking, it never really came to a fruition but as with the mother in the constant trickling this one with constant and very nearly an individual kind of thinking had almost a real important feeling.
     The Hissen family altogether were, and very really, important to themselves inside them in their feeling. Each one of them had always for himself and all the others of them a dignity and a gentle way of making himself important to the others of them and to every one who ever came to know them. They were all of them, each one in the gentle dignity they all had in them, important to every one who ever came near to them. With some of them, their eyes flashed often with a sharp angry almost fierce feeling, that things happening could arouse within them, often with some of them they would be hurt and then their mouths were drooping. In some of them it was a very stubborn feeling that was the deepest thing inside them after the family way that made all them, and these were the hardest to live with and never to be forgiven when they had been hurt or angry by something some one had done to them. But mostly the Hissen men and women were gentle cheerful little men and women, mostly they lived without ambition or excitement and mostly they were each in their little circle cheerful in the present. Mostly they lived and died in mildness and contentment.
     Until they were all really grown men and women, until the women each one found a husband to control them and the men went into a business and were independent of him, until they were in this sense grown men and women, until he died the father always wanted and succeeded in shutting them all up to be always with him. This was not in him from any small feeling inside him but from the important feeling he had in him of being all there was for him of religion and it was his sense of the right way for them to be as children that made him shut them up so and keep them there close to him.
     Later when the daughters were married and the sons working were independent of him and had left him, he never in any way wished to interfere with them, with their feeling, their religion, their way of thinking or their doing. When they were with him, they belonged there and he held them shut in with him, when they left him, grown up men and women, it was no longer for him to act upon them, they no longer were his necessary way of living. It was never his children that gave him an important feeling, his power over them when they were shut up with him never gave him any kind of an important feeling. No it was his being all there was of religion that gave him his important feeling, not his wife nor his children nor any power he had from them nor the power he never had had with any one who did not live shut up with him. Nothing in such a way could give him an important feeling. They were his daily living, the necessary right way of doing, they were not important to his feeling, not in themselves nor in any power in him that came from them either as they were or as he made them. Such things could never come to him as an important feeling of himself inside him. It was only being all there was of religion that gave him such an important feeling.