Geography and Plays

by Gertrude Stein

A candle light does not mean that there are candles, a candle light means arithmetic and training and ways of stating a question and it means much more, it means that every night if there is moonlight there is that light, and light has so much place in a lighted place that every one is accustomed to it.

It is so wintry and hair is blowing and all the slippery slides have water on them, it is so summery and wind is water and all that is red is what is burning, the whole excitement, all the wedding shows the spring to be the place where water springs, all the horizon, all the dwelling shows that escaping is not an escapade that is in a suggestion. So to reason and so to eclipse and so to redden the western sun, so to accept and so to annoy and so to have no piece of money, so much so is not a tangible substance, it is intangible and therefore it is sliced.

A toil that has no frozen dish-water, a trembling that has an appetite, a refusal that has a nervous extremity, an expression that has a direction of disregarding, all this shows the essential use of a minority, they show it and they caution it, they do not outrage giving it credit. The time does not come to any one who is pardoned, it comes and then when there is patience when there is use, when there is talking and a table, when there is even a slice of ham, it comes then to be announced that certainly understanding is what is not partial, it is so kind and strong and lengthy that certainly there is no disgrace.

A goose girl is no goose girl when there are geese. A church is a church. A ship is a ship. Thunder is thunder.

Silence which makes silence give that sense to all there is, silence which has light and water and unison and appetite and result and a motion and more exaggeration and no recklessness, silence which is there is not disturbed by expression.

There is no doubt of one thing there is no doubt that the real rate of establishing frequency is that which is used when there are numbers.

What comes out of silence. What comes out of silence is that which having that usefulness, that nature, and that fashion is not shown to be managed by the combination.

Surely silence is sustained and the change is sudden.

Supposing that there was no use for that which there is use for, supposing there was a bridge there where there is what there is, supposing all this and suppose that the enlightenment of everybody consisted in everybody having that condition, supposing all this, this is then the answer that silence gives in answer. The silence that is not preserved, the silence is the same as the characteristic which is not finished.

A pound of paper and no more string, a pound of string and no more leather, no pounds of anything else, does that make indifference, it does, it does make authority. All the calamity that shows origin and design is that which when it is understood is redetermined all this is entitled readministration. There is no use in a pencil, there is no use in any direction of succeeding in experience, there is not one single objection. The wholesale cloth is not handled with a sprinkler, it is so handled that when there is no obligation there is every inducement it is so handled that pathways are mended, it is so handled that there is a single sound. All the same there is no such language, it does not mean by that that the letters are smaller it does not mean that at all.