The Art of Manliness Manvotionals

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CHAPTER ONE22

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 MenFrom 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



M A N L I N E S S 25

Character of the Happy WarriorFrom 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;



CHAPTER ONE34

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 TeachableFrom 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:



COURAGE

Duty, Honor, CountryFrom 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 outstand-

ing 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 flamboy-

ant 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 char-

acter. 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 enoughto face yourself when you are afraid.



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 steam-

ship, 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;



CHAPTER TWO66

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 WoodsmanAn 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 crea-

tures of God, if ignorance of fear were courage.” —Mark Twain

FightingFrom 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



I N DU S T RY 91

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed

in overalls and looks like work.” —Thomas Edison

OpportunityBy 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 thisBlunt 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 pur-

chaser.” —Joseph Addison



We Do Not Labor That We May Be IdleFrom 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 fre-

quent 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 happi-

ness of a man to him, who by his character and condition, is disqualified

for manly pursuits?



I N DU S T RY 105

OpportunityBy 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



R E S OLU T ION 129

UlyssesFrom 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 whenThro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades



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 firm 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;



184

Every Man Should Be Able to Save His Own LifeFrom 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 fire 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 fire, 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 bedcloth-

ing tied together to reach the ground in safe-

ty; he again would be thankful a thousand

times that he possessed the strength and

endurance in his arms and coordinate mus-cles 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 hap-

pening to someone.



HONOR

The Better ThingBy 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 first 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,



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The Art of Manliness Manvotionals