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I’m working on a review and an essay related to James’ Bowman’s Honor. Androphilia, my first book, looks like it will finally see its second printing — with a new afterword.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

- William Ernest Henley

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Rocks - Pine Creek Wilderness, CA. Photo by Jack Donovan

There are certain things I like to re-post every so often for readers new to my syntopical study of manhood and honor. One of them is the poem “If,” by Rudyard Kipling–a masterpiece that should be passed on to every young man in the West.

Another is “Like a Rock,” by Bob Seger. Many are familiar with segments of the chorus and outro from Chevy commercials. But, if you’ll indulge me here for a moment, the complete lyric captures a vision of manhood that is far more profound than a mere jingle.

Like A Rock
Words and Music by Bob Seger

Stood there boldly
Sweatin’ in the sun
Felt like a million
Felt like number one
The height of summer
I’d never felt that strong
Like a rock

I was eighteen
Didn’t have a care
Working for peanuts
Not a dime to spare
But I was lean and
Solid everywhere
Like a rock

My hands were steady
My eyes were clear and bright
My walk had purpose
My steps were quick and light
And I held firmly
To what I felt was right
Like a rock

Like a rock, I was strong as I could be
Like a rock, nothin’ ever got to me
Like a rock, I was something to see
Like a rock

And I stood arrow straight
Unencumbered by the weight
Of all these hustlers and their schemes
I stood proud, I stood tall
High above it all
I still believed in my dreams

Twenty years now
Where’d they go?
Twenty years
I don’t know
Sit and I wonder sometimes
Where they’ve gone

And sometimes late at night
When I’m bathed in the firelight
The moon comes callin’ a ghostly white
And I recall
I recall

Like a rock, standin’ arrow straight
Like a rock, chargin’ from the gate
Like a rock, carryin’ the weight
Like a rock

Like a rock, the sun upon my skin
Like a rock, hard against the wind
Like a rock, I see myself again
Like a rock

On the surface, an older man remembering an idealized youth. But the ideal that he remembers is what is of interest here, a picture of masculinity, a version of The Form.

The ideal Seger captures with simple imagery is grounded, strong, confident, unafraid, “game” and ready for a challenge, morally pure, uncorrupted by cynicism, not overly concerned with money. He is purposeful and possessed of fortitude.

This is a timeless picture of a good man.

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Rough Rider (1922) by Phimister Proctor

Recently, I went on a walk around Portland with Mr. Blake, and we visited the bronze statue of Theodore Roosevelt in the park blocks across from the Portland Art Museum. This inscription below the statue reads…

“He was found faithful over a few things and he was made ruler over many. He cut his own trail clean and straight and millions followed him toward the light. He was frail; he made himself a tower of strength. He was timid; he made himself a lion of courage. He was a dreamer; he became one of the great doers of all time. Men put their trust in him; Women found a champion in him; Kings stood in awe of him, but children made him their playmate. He broke a nation’s slumber with his cry, and it rose up. He touched the eyes of blind men with a flame and gave them vision. Souls became swords through him; swords became servants of God. He was loyal to his country and he exacted loyalty; he loved many lands, but he loved his own land best. He was terrible in battle, but tender to the weak; joyous and tireless, being free from self-pity; clean with a cleanness that cleansed the air like a gale. His courtesy knew no health, no class; his friendship, no creed or color or race. His courage stood every onslaught of savage beast and ruthless man, of loneliness, of victory, of defeat. His mind was eager, his heart was true, his body and spirit, defiant of obstacles, ready to meet what might come. He fought injustice and tyranny; bore sorrow gallantly; loved all nature, bleak places, and hardy companions, hazardous adventure and the zest of battle. Wherever he went he carried his own pack; and in the uttermost parts of the earth he kept his conscience for his guide.”

“Dedication,” A Biographical Sketch of Theodore Roosevelt

Hermann Hagedorn, 1919

So powerful, so evocative of everything a truly great man should embody. I’m sure Roosevelt had faults and did things I wouldn’t agree with, but those words capture what I mean when I write about the need for powerful masculine heroes who exude strength and inspire men. Our modern world, in its haste to do away with traditional gender roles, never bothered to think about replacing an idealism this potent and beautiful with anything even remotely comparable. Mishima might say that we replaced poetry with bureaucracy.

Cutesy Shopping Mall Art - Roy Lichtenstein "Brushstrokes, 1996"

Mr. Blake and I agree that old Teddy is clearly sneering at the cutesy art across the way.

This piece of shit is an eyesore. It belongs in a shopping mall food court. A old guy passed us on the street while I was taking the picture, and he said something about it looking like bacon. Technicolor bacon. This is a really expensive doodle by a famous artist who phoned it in. Its presence insults the architecture around it, like someone fed a kid a Pop Tart and let him loose in a museum with finger paints.

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Marcus Tullius Cicero

Appelata est enim a viro virtus: viri autem propria maxime est fortitudo.

“The term virtue is from the word that signifies man; a man’s chief quality is fortitude”

Cicero, “Tuscul.”, I, xi, 18.

Very bushido.

h/t ex cathedra

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Blood Brother by Elliot Arnold - 1947

I’ve been writing and thinking a lot recently about men and violence. A few months ago, my good friend Mr. Blake presented me with this great little paperback book from 1947. It has a passage in it about both male violence and blood-brotherhood–the subject of my most recent book. Since I have yet to finish either of the pieces I’m working on this week, I thought I’d take a moment to re-type it here…

“That is how fighting is,” Jeffords said. “Men moving like sheep against one another. The reasons are forgotten now but the fighting goes on.”

“Men fight,” Cochise said very simply. “Men will always fight. If there were no white men here we would fight other Indians. Or Mexicans. If there were no Indians here your soldiers would find someone else to fight. Everything that lives fights. From the smallest to the largest. That is how it is intended. Each thing lives on what is weaker than himself. By destroying another living thing he makes his own place in the forest safer.”

“The forest is big enough for everyone, maybe.”

“Each always wants just the place the other is standing.”

“And the end?”

Cochise gestured widely with his hands. “The weak always lose. For a long time we were the strong. Now we are the weak. We will lose. We will die. Slowly, on reservations, or swiftly, in battle. But we will die. Then it will be your turn. You will no longer have us to conquer so you will fight others. You have tried, Jeffords, to tell me of this earth. You have told me there are great waters and other lands and other people who speak strange languages. There will always be fighting among all of you. Maybe you will defeat them, maybe they will defeat you. It does not matter. There will be fighting. Everywhere, all around in everything with life, there is always fighting. It is coming to the time of your end. No matter how strong men are there always will be men who are stronger.” Again he embraced his friend. “It was good of you to come here. We still speak to each other with a straight tongue. Listen to me again. I knew of your decison, before you came here. We still stand higher to each other than our people stand to each other.”

“That is true, Cochise,” Jeffords said.

“And now we shall become brothers.”

“We are brothers, Cochise.”

“We shall mix our blood and become brothers.”

“Now? When I leave you to become your enemy?”

“Now, when you are closer to me than my own sons.”

“You are a great man, Cochise,” Jeffords said. “You are a very great man.”

“It is our brotherhood,” Cochise said quietly. “It makes a man greater than himself.”

- Blood Brother, Elliot Arnold

(Later made into the film Broken Arrow)

This struck me as a particularly realistic, masculine understanding of the world. Everything fights. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t.

It also follows a theme I’ve seen elsewhere in literature about fighting men; sometimes you respect the man you fight more than anyone else.

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When he first made the connection, I acknowledged it.  But over the past few months and another few viewings, this speech has become more important to me. There are others. But this is a great one.

A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day.

An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crushing down! But it is not this day!

THIS DAY WE FIGHT!

By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!”

The West is worth saving. Stand up, Men of the West.

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Alexis de Tocqueville

“It may readily be conceived that by thus attempting to make one sex equal to the other, both are degraded, and from so preposterous a medley of the works of nature nothing could ever result but weak men and disorderly women.”

- Alexis De Toqueville

h/t Elusive Wapiti

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