AN EXPLANATORY NOTE

Because of a genuine desire to reach a more complete understanding of her work, which is often obscure even to one who knows something about it and has studied it, I asked Miss Gertrude Stein to allow me to interview her concerning it. She consented to the interview and to having a verbatim transcript made of her remarks. On the afternoon of Saturday and Sunday, 5 and 6 January 1945, the interviews which resulted in the accompanying statements took place in Miss Stein's apartment at 5 Rue Christine, Paris. The transcript of Miss Stein's remarks was made by Mrs. Mary E. Dickie, a British civilian then in the employ of the Historical Section, TSFET.

Each of the interviews lasted from approximately two till five and were held in a cordial and informal atmosphere. The questions asked of Miss Stein are included only as required, and no effort has been made to include subsidiary questions, conversational interjections, or request for clarification. It should not be concluded, as it might, that Miss Stein held forth for minutes at a time without pausing. It is a pity that this material could not have been put on a voice recording, for no one can know Miss Stein without having sat with her and listened to her positive, almost-masculine tone, informed with an almost mocking note when it is not charged with an earnest seriousness. Now over 70, she is still a woman of unusual mental vigor. To see her now makes one regret not having seen her in her prime.

The writer feels himself to have been privileged in getting from Miss Stein herself an introduction to a fuller understanding of her work.

WILLIAM A. SUTTON,
1st Lt MAC,
Hochst, Germany.
2 March 1946.

You explain it to anybody that asks, but if the asking desire is not there, the explanation is useless. You can explain when there is contact, and that person who has made contact can explain to others. It is in Wars I have Seen and Everybody's Autobiography. But the thing you have to remember is that it is what these people like, and what Sinclair Lewis can not understand is that it lives and is ageless. His is a perfect example of the false sense of time of the newspaper world. He lives in the past and present and not the future. They have no time other than false time. He makes Main Street as if time were the main thing, which it isn't. He does not see that Main Street is made up of clear accounts of things. He was always dominated by an artificial time when he wrote Main Street. After all, the average human being is selfish and as such is interesting, everybody is, and he gives a little character to it. All right, but that is a cliche. He did not create actual human beings at any time. That is what makes it newspaper. Sinclair Lewis is the typical newspaperman who writes novels as a newspaper man, and everything he says is newspaper. The difference between a thinker and a newspaperman is that a thinker enters right into things; a newspaperman is superficial.

When I was in America one day there were three young newspapermen and a photographer, and they had just come out of college and took themselves very seriously, but eventually we got talking about things in general. The only one of the four of them who understood my writing was the photographer. He said, "I don't have to remember what you say, I am not involved with the mechanics of remembering it and so I can understand it. They are too busy trying to remember what you say."

Picasso and I were talking the other day. I always said I never minded living in France. I write with my eyes, not with my ears or mouth. I hate lecturing, because you begin to hear yourself talk, because sooner or later you hear your voice, and you do not hear what you say. You just hear what they hear you say. As a matter of fact, as a writer I write entirely with my eyes. The words as seen by my eyes are the important words, and the ears and mouth do not count. I said to Picasso "When you were a kid you never looked at things." He seemed to swallow the things he saw but he never looked, and I said, "In recent years you have been looking, you see too much, it is a mistake for you." He said, "You are quite right. A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears. You should always paint knowledge which you have acquired, not by looking but by swallowing. I have always noticed that in portraits of really great writers the mouth is always firmly closed."

-1-

Well, Carl Van Vechten was the first person who published me, and Carl was a great believer in me from the very beginning. Then there was a group of young people in New York. I do not know what has become of them now. They were all friends of Carl Van Vechten. There was a man called D. W. MAGILL, and he in the guise of making fun was very much interested in my work. H. McBride said "If you laugh with her, you have more fun than laughing at her." Protestingly, he used pieces of my work in my paper. I was essentially a writers' writer. My audience in France, that was a perfect audience. The first person who ever printed anything of mine here was Jean Cocteau. That was in a book called Potomac in 1913. He was the first one. He printed the Portrait of Mable Dodge, which he heard read in a cafe. Then there was Edith Sitwell, who was my chief English contact. Harold Acton was another one. Then there was Bernard Fay, who printed a piece of Melanetha and he lectured on my work a great deal at the College de France.

- 1 -

37

A Little Called Pauline.

A little called anything shows shudders.

Come and say what prints all day. A whole few watermelon. There is no pope.

No cut in pennies and little dressing and choose wide soles and little spats really little spices.

A little lace makes boils. This is not true.

Gracious of gracious and a stamp a blue green white bow a blue green lean, lean on the top.

If it is absurd then it is leadish and nearly set in where there is a tight head.

A peaceful life to arise her, moon and moon and moon. A letter a cold sleeve a blanket a shaving house and nearly the best and regular window.

Nearer in fairy sea, nearer and farther, show white has lime in sight, show a stitch of ten. Count, count more so that thicker and thicker is leaning.

I hope she has her cow. Bidding a wedding, widening received treading, little leading, mention nothing.

Cough out cough out in the leather and really feather it is not for.

Please could, please could, jam it not plus more sit in when.

41

A Waist.

A star glide, a single frantic sullonness, a single financial grass greediness.

Object that is in wood. Hold the pine, hold the dark, hold in the rush, make the bottom.

A piece of crystal. A change, in a change that is remarkable there is no reason to say that there was a time.

A woolen object gilded. A country climb is the best disgrace, a couple of practices any of them in order is so left.