The Art of Manliness - Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues

by Brett McKay

  I am certain that there is nothing good, great or desirable which man can possess in this world, that does not come by some kind of labor of physical or mental, moral or spiritual. A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing. What is true in the world of matter, is equally true in the world of the mind. Without culture there can be no growth; without exertion, no acquisition; without friction, no polish; without labor, no knowledge; without action, no progress and without conflict, no victory. A man that lies down a fool at night, hoping that he will waken wise in the morning, will rise up in the morning as he laid down in the evening.

  From these remarks it will be evident that, allowing only ordinary ability and opportunity, we may explain success mainly by one word and that word is WORK! WORK!! WORK!!! WORK!!!! Not transient and fitful effort, but patient, enduring, honest, unremitting and indefatigable work into which the whole heart is put, and which, in both temporal and spiritual affairs, is the true miracle worker. Everyone may avail himself of this marvelous power, if he will. There is no royal road to perfection. Certainly no one must wait for some kind of friend to put a springing board under his feet, upon which he may easily bound from the first round of their ladder onward and upward to its highest round. If he waits for this, he may wait long, and perhaps forever. He who does not think himself worth saving from poverty and ignorance by his own efforts, will hardly be thought worth the efforts of anybody else.

  The lesson taught at this point by human experience is simply this, that the man who will get up will be helped up; and the man who will not get up will be allowed to stay down. This rule may appear somewhat harsh, but in its general application and operation it is wise, just and beneficent. I know of no other rule which can be substituted for it without bringing social chaos. Personal independence is a virtue and it is the soul out of which comes the sturdiest manhood. But there can be no independence without a large share of self-dependence, and this virtue cannot be bestowed. It must be developed from within.

  Pioneers! O Pioneers!

  FROM LEAVES OF GRASS, 1891

  By Walt Whitman

  Come my tan-faced children,

  Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,

  Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  For we cannot tarry here,

  We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,

  We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  O you youths, Western youths,

  So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,

  Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  Have the elder races halted?

  Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?

  We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  All the past we leave behind,

  We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,

  Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  We detachments steady throwing,

  Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,

  Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  We primeval forests felling,

  We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,

  We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  Colorado men are we,

  From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,

  From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  From Nebraska, from Arkansas,

  Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental

  blood intervein’d,

  All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  O resistless restless race!

  O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!

  O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  Raise the mighty mother mistress,

  Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your heads all,)

  Raise the fang’d and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon’d mistress,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  See my children, resolute children,

  By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,

  Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  On and on the compact ranks,

  With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill’d,

  Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  O to die advancing on!

  Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?

  Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill’d.

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  All the pulses of the world,

  Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,

  Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  Life’s involv’d and varied pageants,

  All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,

  All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  All the hapless silent lovers,

  All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,

  All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  I too with my soul and body,

  We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,

  Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  Lo, the darting bowling orb!

  Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and planets,

  All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  These are of us, they are with us,

  All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo

  wait behind,

  We to-day’s procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  O you daughters of the West!

  O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!

  Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  Minstrels latent on the prairies!

  (Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have done your work,)

  Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  Not for delectations sweet,

  Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious,

  Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  Do the feasters gluttonous feast?

  Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock’d and bolted doors?

  Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  Has the night descended?

  Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding on our way?

  Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  Till with sound of trumpet,

  Far, far off the da
ybreak call—hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind,

  Swift! to the head of the army!—swift! spring to your places,

  Pioneers! O pioneers!

  “Men seem neither to understand their riches nor their strength; of the former they believe greater things than they should; of the latter much less. Self-reliance and self-denial will teach a man to drink out of his own cistern, and eat his own sweetbread, and to learn and labor truly to get his own living, and carefully to save and expend the good things committed to his trust.” —Francis Bacon

  A Guarantee of Independence

  FROM THRIFT; OR, How to Get on in the World, 1881

  By Samuel Smiles

  As a guarantee of independence, the modest and plebeian quality of economy is at once ennobled and raised to the rank of one of the most meritorious of virtues. “Never treat money affairs with levity,” said Bulwer; “money is character.” Some of man’s best qualities depend upon the right use of money—such as his generosity, benevolence, justice, honesty, and forethought. Many of his worst qualities also originate in the bad use of money—such as greed, miserliness, injustice, extravagance, and improvidence.

  People who spend all that they earn are ever hanging on the brink of destitution. They must necessarily be weak and impotent—the slaves of time and circumstance. They keep themselves poor. They lose self-respect as well as the respect of others. It is impossible that they can be free and independent. To be thriftless is enough to deprive one of all manly spirit and virtue.

  But a man with something saved, no matter how little, is in a different position. The little capital he has stored up is always a source of power. He is no longer the sport of time and fate. He can boldly look the world in the face. He is, in a manner, his own master. He can dictate his own terms. He can neither be bought nor sold. He can look forward with cheerfulness to an old age of comfort and happiness.

  Interest Never Sleeps

  FROM “THE SPECTER OF DEBT,” 1938

  By J. Reuben Clark Jr.

  It is the rule of our financial and economic life in all the world that interest is to be paid on borrowed money. May I say something about interest?

  Interest never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation; it never visits nor travels; it takes no pleasure; it is never laid off work nor discharged from employment; it never works on reduced hours … Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields neither to entreaties, demands, or orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you.

  “I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was possible for me to execute myself.” —Montesquieu

  The Farmer and the Larks

  AN AESOP’S Fable

  Some larks had a nest in a field of grain. One evening the old larks coming home found the young ones in great terror. “We must leave our nest at once,” they cried. Then they related how they had heard the farmer say that he must get his neighbors to come the next day and help him reap his field. “Oh,” cried the old birds, “if that is all, we may rest quietly in our nest.’’

  The next evening the young birds were found again in a state of terror. The farmer, it seems, was very angry because his neighbors had not come, and had said that he should get his relatives to come the next day to help him. The old birds took the news easily, and said there was nothing to fear yet.

  The next evening the young birds were quite cheerful. “Have you heard nothing today?” asked the old ones. “Nothing important,” answered the young. “It is only that the farmer was angry because his relatives also failed him, and he said to his sons, ‘Since neither our relatives nor our neighbors will help us, we must take hold tomorrow and do it ourselves.’”

  The old birds were excited this time. They said, “We must leave our nest tonight. When a man decides to do a thing for himself, and to do it at once, you may be pretty sure that it will be done.”

  “For the man who makes everything that leads to happiness, or near to it, to depend upon himself, and not upon other men … has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation; this is the man of manly character and of wisdom.” —Plato

  The Frontiersman

  FROM SOULS-SPUR, 1914

  By Richard Wightman

  The suns of summer seared his skin;

  The cold his blood congealed;

  The forest giants blocked his way

  The stubborn acres’ yield

  He wrenched from them by dint of arm,

  And grim old Solitude

  Broke bread with him and shared his cot

  Within the cabin rude.

  The gray rocks gnarled his massive hands;

  The north wind shook his frame;

  The wolf of hunger bit him oft;

  The world forgot his name;

  But mid the lurch and crash of trees,

  Within the clearing’s span

  Where now the bursting wheat-heads dip,

  The fates turned out—a man!

  “There is something captivating in spirit and intrepidity, to which we often yield, as to a resistless power; nor can he reasonably expect the confidence of others, who too apparently distrusts himself.” —Samuel Johnson

  Don’t Be a Sheep; Be a Man

  FROM EDITORIALS FROM THE HEARST Newspapers, 1906

  By Arthur Brisbane

  We inflict a piece of advice upon our readers. It is intended especially for the young, who have still to get their growth, whose characters and possibilities are forming.

  Get away from the crowd when you can. Keep yourself to yourself, if only for a few hours daily.

  Full individual growth, special development, rounded mental operations—all these demand room, separation from others, solitude, self-examination and the self-reliance which solitude gives.

  The finest tree stands off by itself in the open plain. Its branches spread wide. It is a complete tree, better than the cramped tree in the crowded forest.

  The animal to be admired is not that which runs in herds, the gentle browsing deer or foolish sheep thinking only as a fraction of the flock, incapable of personal independent direction. It’s the lonely prowling lion or the big black leopard with the whole world for his private field that is worth looking at.

  The man who grows up in a herd, deer-like, thinking with the herd, acting with the herd, rarely amounts to anything.

  Do you want to succeed? Grow in solitude, work, develop in solitude, with books and thoughts and nature for friends. Then, if you want the crowd to see how fine you are, come back to it and boss it if it will let you.

  Here is what Goethe says: “Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, doch ein Charakter in dem Strome der Welt.” (Talent is developed in solitude, character in the rush of the world.)

  Don’t be a sheep or a deer. Don’t devote your hours to the company and conversation of those who know as little as you do. Don’t think hard only when you are trying to remember a popular song or to decide on the color of your winter overcoat or necktie.

  Remember that you are an individual, not a grain of dust or a blade of grass. Don’t be a sheep; be a man. It has taken nature a hundred million years to produce you. Don’t make her sorry she took the time.

  Get out in the park and walk and think. Get up in your hall bedroom, read, study, write what you think. Talk more to yourself and less to others. Avoid magazines, avoid excessive newspaper reading.

  There is not a man of average ability but could make a striking career if he could but will to do the best that is in him.

  Proofs of growth due to solitude are endless. Milton’s greatest work was done when blindness, old age and the death of the Puritan government forced him into completest seclusion. Beethoven did his best work in the solitude of deafness.

  Bacon would never ha
ve been the great leader of scientific thought had not his trial and disgrace forced him from the company of a grand retinue and stupid court to the solitude of his own brain.

  “Multum insola fuit anima mea.” (My spirit hath been much alone.) This he said often, and lucky it was for him. Loneliness of spirit made him.

  Get a little of it for yourself.

  Drop your club, your street corner, your gossipy boarding-house table. Drop your sheep life and try being a man.

  It may improve you.

  Always Try It Yourself

  FROM ETHICS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE, 1891

  By Charles Carroll Everett

  It is important to learn early to rely upon yourself; for little has been done in the world by those who are always looking out for some one to help them.

  We must be on our guard not to confound self-reliance with self-conceit, yet the difference between the two cannot easily be defined in words.

  The difference is something like that between bravery and foolhardiness.

  The self-conceited person takes it for granted that he is superior to others.

  Self-reliance is very different from this. The self-reliant person is often very modest. He does not say about anything that is to be done, “I am so strong and wise that I can do it.” He says, “I will try, and if patience and hard work will do it, it shall be done.”

  One way in which a person may become self-reliant, is never to seek or accept help till he has fairly tried what can be done without it.

  Some scholars, if they come to a problem that seems hard, run at once to the teacher, or an older friend, or perhaps even to another scholar, who is brighter or more self-reliant than themselves, in order to be told how to do it. Always try it yourself. Even if it is nothing more important than a conundrum, do not wish somebody to tell you the answer till you have fairly tried to conquer it.

  It is a pleasant feeling that comes from having done a difficult thing one’s self, a feeling that those never have who are helped out of every hard place.