Contrary to popular belief, Gertrude Stein is not crazy. In fact, she is like any ordinary person. In talking with her one discovers only an occassional disconnection such as is frequently found in her writing. At times she has the abstract, ethereal air associated with artists and writers, but again her business-like manner and piercing eyes will offset all such impressions.
Miss Stein likes conservative colors, wears leggings, and seems very much younger than 60 despite the fact that her close-cropped, mannish-bobbed hair is almost gray.
She likes to cook, but outside of this all commonplace things are delegated to her companion-secretary, Alice B. Toklas.
A native of Pennsylvania, Miss Stein has traveled widely in western Europe and her return trip to America last fall was somewhat of a comeback.
Miss Stein refuted the statement that her style of writing is hard to do. "Think of something, concentrate and write it exactly as it looks to you," she explained.
"It is accurate, descriptive (pointing to several passages in one of her books), realistic, and NOT a state of mind. It is not hard to write. It is exactly as it is," she emphatically stated.
"How about this portion?" (the far-famed "Pigeon in the Grass" passage), she was asked.
"It's like this," she explained. "The magpie is in the sky while the pigeon is on the grass. The magpie is flying over and trying to pass the pigeon. The pigeon can't fly, it is on the grass. I felt sorry for it."
She later turned to a discussion of other things. Chaucer's poetry is all right, but it is not representative of today, she believes. The same is true of Victorian poetry. You read it, but you're not a Victorian.
At the Cleveland Museum of Art, shortly before last Christmas, Miss Stein read a lecture on oil paintings for members and friends of the Cleveland Print club.
The audience, composed mostly of Cleveland society, was at a loss as to how to take Miss Stein--and who could blame them when such statements as the following were rife:
"If oil paintings are oil paintings then I like to look at them. If less like anything, does it make any difference? Does it get complicated?
"That's really nobody's business. Could it be the oil painting's business? But after all, if it was not the oil painting's business, then it was really nobody's business.
"And if he does, and if somebody does, why does he?"
She dismissed the entire lecture with: "All this is important because it is important."
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