I have question pertaining to Gertrude Stein. She's often referred to as an
original stylist. But what were the influences on Stein? Her literary
rhythms and repetitions. Was she influenced by Charles Peguy's writing?
The following selection of Peguy's would suggest some influence was brought
to bear. (from Clio--Dialogue de l'histoire et de l'ame paienne---THE IMAGE
OF HUMANKIND: THE SECRET OF THE MAN OF FORTY.)
"He knows; and he knows he knows. He knows that one is not happy. He knows
that ever since there has been man no man has ever been happy. And he even
knows it so deeply, and with a knowledge so deeply ingrained in the depths
of his heart, that it is perhaps, that it is surely, the only belief, the
only knowledge he values, in which he feels and knows his honor to be
engaged, precisely the only one in which there is no understanding, no mask,
no connivance. To say it outright, no adherence, no
compliance, no Good will. No obligingness. No goodness. Now, note the
inconsistency. The same man. This man naturally has a son of fourteen. And
he has but one thought, that his son should be happy. And he does not tell
himself that it would be the first time; that this has yet to be seen. He
tells himself nothing at all, which is the sign of the deepest thought. This
man is or is not an intellectual. He is or is not a philosopher. He is or is
not blase. (Blase from pain, the worst corruption. ) He has an animal
thought. Those are the best kind. Those are the only ones. He has only one
thought. And it is
an animal thought. He wants his son to be happy. He thinks only of this,
that his son should be happy.
He has another thought. He is preoccupied solely with the idea that his son
(already) has of him; it is an idee fixe, an obsession, that is, a siege, a
blockade, a sort of scrupulous and consuming mania. He has only one concern,
the judgment that his son, in the secret of his heart, will pass on him. He
wants to read the future solely in the eyes of this son. He searches the
depths of his eyes. That which has never succeeded, never happened, he is
convinced will happen this time. And not only that, but that it will happen
as if naturally and smoothly. As a result of some sort of natural law. And
history said, I say that nothing is as touching as this perpetual, this
eternal, this eternally reborn inconsistency; and that nothing is as
disarming before God, and we have here the common miracle of your young
Hope.
But, she said, suddenly stopping, here we come back to lands you have
cleared forever.
Ernest Slyman
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