The Art of Manliness: Manvotionals

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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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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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

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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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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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UPC

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51699

781440 312007

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