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.
It was queer unless you really could understand him, could really see how the important feeling came to be in him, it was certainly queer to just ordinary thinking to see a man who had been so rigid with his children, keeping them shut up with him, making them live every minute as he would have them, having no power with anyone who did not live so with him, it was queer that when these children came to be grown men and women, that is independent and living away from him, that he never in any way wanted to keep his hold on them. He had for them then as much affection as he ever had had for them, he always went to see them and was open and friendly with them but not in any way had he ever any kind of desire in him to interfere with them or their way of living or their thinking or their doing, no not even with their feeling in religion. They were his children, yes, but not now a part of his necessary living, even when, as he did some years before dying, even when he was living with one of them who with her husband had very different ways of living, of thinking, and of feeling, in religion than he had it in him, even then he never interfered with them who were now independent of him, grown men and women. The only thing that gave him an important feeling was being all there was of religion. When his children were shut in with him they were a part of him, they had to do with his necessary way of being, they had to live in his important feeling, with his being all there was of religion, but when they had left him, when later he even lived with them, they were then no longer a part of him, he was then, all alone, all there was of religion. By that time his wife too had left him, had died away and left him. Always in her living she had never been quite of him, she had been cut off from him, by her having from her constant trickling crying an almost important feeling. And so this old man who was to himself all there was of religion, to whom religion and himself was all there was of living, who had kept his children close shut up with him every minute of their living until they were for him grown up men and women this old man who never had had any power in him for any one who was not shut up with him, this old man had a queer way of being almost perfect in his toleration of things that were all different from his way of thinking and feeling and believing, even with religion, even with his children, now when they were independent of him.
So strong was it in him, this tolerating spirit toward them when they were grown men and women to him, that even when later in their living they sometimes asked him to guide them he would refuse it to them, for they were then apart from him, he was all there was of religion, religion was all there was of being for him; that made him important to himself inside him. It was not for him to guide them they who were apart from him, they were, then as all the world always had been, he had no power over anything not shut up with him, and so he had a tolerant spirit for everything that was not him, for his children now when they were grown up and independent even when as it happened later he was living with some of them.
One of them who had come to be grown up for him was the Fanny Hissen who had married David Hersland the man who was as big as all the world in his beginning and strong to prove this, his feeling, on all who met him, not only on them who were shut up with him, everybody always felt this in him, once he was as big as all the world around him, he was it, it was in him, there was no difference with it inside him or outside for him; in his beginning with Fanny Hissen when she first began her living with him she wanted to do as he would have her do in all things. It came to them, in religion, that his ways were not the ways that had been right for her to have when she was living with her family, when they had been all living, shut in with the father who was all there was of religion. It came one day to a very great division between her husband's way of thinking and feeling in religion and her father's ways as she had learned to have them inside her when she with all her sisters and her brothers were living shut up with him.
She wrote to him and asked him, she said her husband wanted her to go with him and it was not as she had been taught by him her father, she did not feel it wrong to do this thing but she could not do it without asking her father, who had never let his children do any such thing when they were shut in with him. What should she do, she would not make for herself such a decision, she would ask him, was it wrong for her to do this thing, to go with her husband to such a meeting.
The old man replied. "My dear child. There was once a priest, a good man. Once a member of his church came to him and said I have been thinking can I do this thing, can I go to a barber's shop and get shaved on a Sunday morning, is it wrong for me to do this thing. The priest said, yes he must forbid it to him, he must not go to a barber's shop on a Sunday morning and get a man to shave him, it was wrong for him to do this thing, it would be a sin in him. Two Sundays after the man met his priest coming out of a shop shaved all fresh and clean. But how is this, the man said to him, you told me that it was forbidden, you told me, when I asked you, that I should not do this thing, that it would be for me a sin. Ah! said the priest to him, that was right, I told you I must forbid you to go Sunday morning to a shop and get some one to shave you, that it would be a sin for you to do this thing, but don't you see, I did not do any asking."
Later in the old man's living, when his wife had died away and left him, he came to live with a daughter who had not any kind of an important feeling to herself inside her, neither from a religion to be all her nor from a constant rising up inside her as the dreary mother had it in her to have an almost important feeling to be inside her from the constant trickling of her, the father later came to live with this daughter who had a gentle dignity and good ways in her from the sweet nature of her not from any important feeling in her, and she and the man who was married to her, both, though they had respect in them for the father, and goodness and a delicate feeling to consider all who ever had to do with them, though they were glad to do for him everything he wanted them to be doing yet they