reference/etiquette
For centuries, being a man meant living a life of virtue and excellence.
But then, through time, the art of manliness was lost.
Now, after decades of excess and aimless drift, men are looking for
something to help them live an authentic, manly life—a primer that
can give their life real direction and purpose.
This book holds the answers. To master the art of manliness, a
man must live the seven manly virtues: Manliness, Courage, Industry,
Resolution, Self-Reliance, Discipline, Honor.
Each chapter covers one of the seven virtues and is packed with the
best classic advice ever written down for men. From the philosophy
of Aristotle to the speeches and essays of Theodore Roosevelt, these
pages contain the manly wisdom of the ages—poems, quotes, and
essays that will inspire you to live life to the fullest and realize your
complete potential.
Brett and Kate McKay are the married team behind the popular website,
ArtofManliness.com. From manly virtues to manly skills, the site is dedicated
to reviving the lost art of manliness. In
just three years, the site has grown to
US $16.99
X3954
more than 5 million views a month and
(CAN $17.99)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4403-1200-7
ISBN-10: 1-4403-1200-1
more than 100,000 daily subscribers.
35313 65243
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04 0120
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781440 312007
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From the brightest gleam of the Arctic stream
To the dusk of my own love-night.”
“One cannot always be a hero, but one can always
be a man.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Song of the Manly Men
From The Song of the Manly Men and Other Verses, 1908
By Frank Hudson
Heard from the wild and the desert,
Echoing back from the sea,
Faint o’er the din of the city
Floats the song of the men that are free.
There’s a lilt in the strenuous chorus,
There’s joy in our labouring when
We hear o’er the babble of weaklings
The song of the manly men.
‘Tis heard ‘mid the ringing of anvils,
‘Tis heard ‘mid the clashing of steel,
When the hosts go down together,
And the shell-slashed legions reel.
‘Tis heard from the mine and the furrow;
From prairie, and mountain, and glen;
Like the roll of the drums in the distance
Comes the song of the manly men.
The fool in his ignorant bondage
May sneer at their fashion and speech,
The fop and the feather-bed workman
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CHAPTER ONE
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Character of the Happy Warrior
From Poems, in Two Volumes, 1807
By William Wordsworth
Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he
That every Man in arms should wish to be?
—It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought:
Whose high endeavours are an inward light
That makes the path before him always bright:
Who, with a natural instinct to discern
What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;
Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,
But makes his moral being his prime care;
Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,
And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain;
In face of these doth exercise a power
Which is our human nature’s highest dower;
Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves
Of their bad influence, and their good receives;
By objects, which might force the soul to abate
Her feeling, rendered more compassionate;
Is placable—because occasions rise
So often that demand such sacrifice;
More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure,
As tempted more; more able to endure,
As more exposed to suffering and distress;
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.
—’Tis he whose law is reason; who depends
Upon that law as on the best of friends;
MANLINE S S
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Manly strength respects womanly purity, sympathy, and grace of heart.
And this is the real chivalry of the present hour.
“Masculinity is not something given to you, but something you
gain. And you gain it by winning small battles with honor.”
—Norman Mailer
Manliness Is Teachable
From The Suppliant Women, 423 B.C.
By Euripides (translated by Frank William Jones)
In a battle outside the gates of Thebes, seven great Argive warriors are killed,
but the ruler who takes power in that city, Creon, decrees that their bodies will
be left to rot.
The mothers of the dead soldiers beg Athens to help them bring back the
bodies of their dead sons so that they can be buried. The King of Athens has
mercy on the mothers, attacks Thebes, and retrieves the corpses. The men are
given a proper funeral.
In this selection from the poem, The Suppliant Women, Adrastus, the King
of Argos, eulogizes the deeds and character of five of the dead soldiers. Each
man who died was not only a great warrior, but embodied the characteristics
of true manliness.
Hear, then. By granting me the privilege
Of praising friends, you meet my own desire
To speak of them with justice and with truth.
I saw the deeds—bolder than words can tell—
By which they hoped to take the city. Look:
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CHAPTER ONE
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Duty, Honor, Country
From a speech, 1962
By General Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur served in the US Army for fifty-two years, most famously
as General and then Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers during World
War II. Nearing the end of his life, he returned to his alma mater, West Point,
to receive the Sylvanus Thayer Award, given to those who render outstanding service to the nation and embody the Academy’s motto of “Duty, Honor,
Country.” Focusing on that theme, MacArthur made the following remarks to
the Corps of Cadets upon accepting the award.
Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate
what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your
rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain
faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when
hope becomes forlorn.
The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite,
every troublemaker, and, I am sorry to say, some
others of an entirely different character, will
try to downgrade them even to the extent
of mockery and ridicule.
But these are some of the things
they do. They build your basic character. They mold you for your future
roles as the custodians of the nation’s
defense. They make you strong enough to
know when you are weak, and brave enough
to face yourself when you are afraid.
COURAGE
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Heroes
From “Song of Myself,” 1855
By Walt Whitman
I understand the large hearts of heroes,
The courage of present times and all times,
How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the steamship, and Death chasing it up and down the storm,
How he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch, and was faithful of
days and faithful of nights,
And chalk’d in large letters on a board, Be of good cheer, we will not
desert you;
How he follow’d with them and tack’d with them three days and would
not give it up,
How he saved the drifting company at last,
How the lank loose-gown’d women look’d when boated from the side of
their prepared graves,
How the silent old-faced infants and the lifted sick, and the sharp-lipp’d
unshaved men;
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All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes mine,
I am the man, I suffer’d, I was there.
“Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the
spines of others are often stiffened.” —Billy Graham
The Hunter and the Woodsman
An Aesop’s Fable
A hunter, not very bold, was searching for the tracks of a Lion. He asked a
man felling oaks in the forest if he had seen any marks of his footsteps, or
if he knew where his lair was. “I will,” he said, “at once show you the Lion
himself.” The Hunter, turning very pale, and chattering with his teeth from
fear, replied, “No, thank you. I did not ask that; it is his track only I am in
search of, not the Lion himself.”
The hero is brave in deeds as well as words.
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of
fear. Except a creature be part coward, it is not a compliment to
say it is brave; it is merely a loose misapplication of the word.
Consider the flea!—incomparably the bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of fear were courage.” —Mark Twain
Fighting
From Tom Brown’s School Days, 1857
By Thomas Hughes
Tom Brown’s School Days was a popular nineteenth-century novel that followed
eleven-year-old Tom Brown, as he adjusted to life at a public boarding school
66
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CHAPTER TWO
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“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed
in overalls and looks like work.” —Thomas Edison
Opportunity
By Edward Rowland Sill, 1880
This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:—
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords
Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince’s banner
Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.
A craven hung along the battle’s edge,
And thought: “Had I a sword of keener steel—
That blue blade that the king’s son bears—but this
Blunt thing—!” he snapt and flung it from his hand,
And lowering crept away and left the field.
Then came the king’s son, wounded, sore bestead,
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,
Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,
And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout
Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down,
And saved a great cause on that heroic day.
“Mankind is more indebted to industry than ingenuity; the
gods set up their favors at a price, and industry is the purchaser.” —Joseph Addison
INDUSTRY
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We Do Not Labor That We May Be Idle
From Nicomachean Ethics, c. 350 B.C.
By Aristotle
We do not labor that we may be idle; but, as Anarchis justly said, we are
idle that we may labor with more effect; that is, we have recourse to sports
and amusements as refreshing cordials after contentious exertions, that,
having reposed in such diversions for a while, we may recommence our
labors with increased vigor. The weakness of human nature requires frequent remissions of energy; but these rests and pauses are only the better
to prepare us for enjoying the pleasures of activity. The amusements of life,
therefore, are but preludes to its business, the place of which they cannot
possibly supply; and its happiness, because its business, consists in the
exercise of those virtuous energies which constitute the worth and dignity
of our nature. Inferior pleasures may be enjoyed by the fool and the slave
as completely as by the hero or the sage. But who will ascribe the happiness of a man to him, who by his character and condition, is disqualified
for manly pursuits?
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Opportunity
By John James Ingalls
Written by John James Ingalls (1833–1900), a U.S. Senator from Kansas, this
poem was said to be Theodore Roosevelt’s favorite; when he was president, an
autographed copy of the poem was the only thing besides a portrait to hang in
his executive office in the White House.
Master of human destinies am I;
Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait.
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and passing by
Hovel and mart and palace—soon or late
I knock unbidden once at every gate!
If sleeping, wake—if feasting, rise before
I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate
Condemned to failure, penury, and woe,
Seek me in vain, and uselessly implore.
I answer not, and I return no more!
“Industry, thrift and self-control are not sought because
they create wealth, but because they create character.”
—Calvin Coolidge
INDUSTRY
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Ulysses
From Poems, 1842
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Odyssey, written by the Greek poet Homer, follows the hero Odysseus
(Ulysses in Roman myths) as he journeys home after fighting in the Trojan War.
After ten years of fighting, Odysseus was determined to return to his family as
quickly as possible. But he is thwarted in his quest by obstacles and monsters,
and it takes him another decade of traveling to make it back to Ithaca. During
that time Odysseus never wavers in his resolve to embrace his family once more.
In “Ulysses,” Tennyson imagines life for Odysseus after the euphoria of his
homecoming has waned and life in Ithaca has returned to normal. Odysseus
is advanced in years and free from his former hardships, and yet is restless for
further challenge and travel on the open seas; he resolves to die living a life of
adventure and prepares to set sail once again. Tennyson wrote this poem after
learning of the death of his close friend and fellow poet, Arthur Henry Hallam.
Devastated by the loss of this companion, Tennyson said the poem “gave my
feeling about the need of going forward and braving the struggle of life,” that
despite such loss, “still life must be fought out to the end.”
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
RE SOLUTION
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The Man With the Iron Will
From Ballads of the Hearthstone, 1901
By Henry H. Johnson
Give me the man with an iron will
And a purpose fi rm and strong;—
Who dares to stand by the right until
He has crushed to death the wrong;
Who treads where the path of duty leads,
Though the way be blocked by foes;—
Whose heart and hand a good cause speeds,
No matter who oppose.
Give me the man with an iron will,
Who knows no such word as fail;
Who will, if need, his heart’s blood spill
To make the good prevail;
Who guards the right with his strong arm,
And dares to stand ’gainst might;
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Every Man Should Be Able to Save His Own Life
From Endurance, 1926
By Earle Liederman
Every man should be able to save his own life. He should be able to swim
far enough, run fast and long enough to save his life in case of emergency
and necessity. He also should be able to chin himself a reasonable number
of times, as well as to dip a number of times, and he should be able to jump
a reasonable height and distance.
If he is of the fat, porpoise type, naturally he cannot do all, if any, of
these things; he has nobody to blame but himself, and his way of living
that has brought his body into its condition of obesity.
Suppose—and it has happened many times—there should be a fi re at
sea or on lake or river; should one be half a mile or more from the shore,
he would be mighty thankful to realize, were he compelled to jump for
his life from the fi re, that he could swim that distance and reach the
shore in safety.
Suppose one were in a burning building and
he had to lower himself hand under hand down a
rope or down an improvised rope of bedclothing tied together to reach the ground in safety; he again would be thankful a thousand
times that he possessed the strength and
endurance in his arms and coordinate muscles that would enable him to save himself.
Such things never may happen, and let us
hope they do not, but
what has happened
always is possible to
occur again—and, in
fact, always is happening to someone.
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7/12/11 12:19 PM
The Better Thing
By Anonymous
It is better to lose with a conscience clean
Than to win by a trick unfair;
It is better to fail and to know you’ve been,
Whatever the prize was, square,
Than to claim the joy of a far-off goal
And the cheers of the standers-by,
And to know down deep in your inmost soul
A cheat you must live and die.
Who wins by trick can take the prize,
And at fi rst he may think it sweet,
But many a day in the future lies
When he’ll wish he had met defeat.
For the man who lost shall be glad at heart
And walk with his head up high.
While his conqueror knows he must play the part
Of a cheat and a living lie.
The prize seems fair when the fight is on,
But unless it is truly won
You will hate the thing when the crowds are gone,
HONOR
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reference/etiquette
For centuries, being a man meant living a life of virtue and excellence.
But then, through time, the art of manliness was lost.
Now, after decades of excess and aimless drift, men are looking for
something to help them live an authentic, manly life—a primer that
can give their life real direction and purpose.
This book holds the answers. To master the art of manliness, a
man must live the seven manly virtues: Manliness, Courage, Industry,
Resolution, Self-Reliance, Discipline, Honor.
Each chapter covers one of the seven virtues and is packed with the
best classic advice ever written down for men. From the philosophy
of Aristotle to the speeches and essays of Theodore Roosevelt, these
pages contain the manly wisdom of the ages—poems, quotes, and
essays that will inspire you to live life to the fullest and realize your
complete potential.
Brett and Kate McKay are the married team behind the popular website,
ArtofManliness.com. From manly virtues to manly skills, the site is dedicated
to reviving the lost art of manliness. In
just three years, the site has grown to
US $16.99
X3954
more than 5 million views a month and
(CAN $17.99)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4403-1200-7
ISBN-10: 1-4403-1200-1
more than 100,000 daily subscribers.
35313 65243
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04 0120
UPC
EAN
51699
781440 312007
7/12/11 12:27 PM