Male protagonist

“ The modern masculine novel, dealing almost exclusively with the rougher, more stirring side of life, with the objective rather than the subjective, marks the reaction against the abuse of love in fiction. ”

“ They had converted part of their own kind into men, their own kind of men, and theoretically there wouldn't be any more insecurity brought on by the kind of male psychology that had turned the Earth around for so long. ”

“ The masculine character, the ability to dare and endure, to know and yet not fear reality, to look the world in the face and take it for what it is—a very queer and partly very base mixture—that is what I want to preserve, or rather, as I may say, to recover ”

“ They who are a section of the male follow the male, and while they are young, being slices of the original man, they hang about men and embrace them, and they are themselves the best of boys and youths, because they have the most manly nature. ”

“ He proved to be that rarest of types—the man who has no fear of his fellow-creatures, male or female, singly or in battalions. Our sex is so accustomed to squaring its shoulders, pulling down its waistcoat, and assuming an engaging expression as a preliminary to an encounter with the fair, that the spectacle of a man who enters a strange drawing-room and shakes hands quietly and naturally all round, without twisting his features into an agreeable smile and mumbling entirely inarticulate words of rapture, always arouses in me feelings of envy and respect. ”

“ What might have been termed her masculine method was based on the broad, general principle that the adult male is most interested in the persons most interested in him, and it never failed, in its many modifications, of effect. ”

“ Unfortunately for me, I have a constant craving for male society; and when thrown into the company of an agreeable man, be he young or old, passions which have never been gratified will assert their supremacy in my breast, and I often tremble lest, in a moment of delirium, I surrender my person unresisting to the arms of a too fascinating seducer. ”

“ I was created as a man perfectly male, save in the one thing which keeps such a 'man' back from possibility of ever becoming integrally male—his terrible, instinctive demand for a psychic and a physical union with a man—not with a woman. ”

“ Now, after figuring out this type of a normally manly personality, inward and outward, the reader will please let his mind run over the list of his more intimate male acquaintance. How many of the men that he knows show a decided "working majority" of those traits, fundamental to a normal man' identity? ”

“ It is to be noted, however, that these suggestions introduce an assumption of male superiority, or male inferiority—according to our scheme of values—which unnecessarily prejudices and confuses the issue. ”

“ In order to maintain that the masculine character coincides with that of the undeveloped woman, it would be necessary to show that the latter during her infancy possesses the male characters predominating—that is, unimpressibility, judgment, physical courage, and the like. ”

“ It must be that the male creature is very secure of his position, socially, mentally, morally, and physically, to permit such presumption—nay, to demand it. Can any philosopher explain to me this mystery? ”

“ Those who are inspired by this love turn to the male, and delight in him who is the most valiant and intelligent nature; any one may recognise the pure enthusiasts in the very character of their attachments; for they love not boys, but intelligent beings whose reason is beginning to be developed, much about the time at which their beards begin to grow. ”

“ The artistic instinct—the poetic temperament, "sentimentality" in its highest sense—goes hand in hand with a rounding-off of the sharp corners of masculinity. Artistic or poetic decades have been conspicuous because of a semi-slumbering of fundamental masculine traits, that is, the instinctive relish for wrangling and war. ”

“ It's so hard to find a male to gratify one's artistic taste. ”

“ There is nothing parallel to this, I believe,—nothing so foolishly disinterested, and hardly anything so beautiful,—in the masculine nature, at whatever epoch of life; or, if there be, a fine and rare development of character might reasonably be looked for from the youth who should prove himself capable of such self-forgetful affection. ”

“ Strength of character will be hers, not, perhaps, so much the stern sense of justice that most marks the masculine conscience, as the full and earnest affection that adds mercy to justice and love to duty. ”

“ Upon these, and other points of a similar kind, the theatrical young gentleman is a great critic indeed. He is likewise very acute in judging of natural expressions of the passions, and knows precisely the frown, wink, nod, or leer, which stands for any one of them, or the means by which it may be converted into any other: as jealousy, with a good stamp of the right foot, becomes anger; or wildness, with the hands clasped before the throat, instead of tearing the wig, is passionate love. ”

“ He tried to imagine what it would be like to be a beautiful girl, and his mind conjured up a picture of a large gathering, intimidated and cowering in the presence of this lovely female who insisted on this and that, who chose to be rid of them all except a bronze, handsome god. In these fantasies he had charm and wit, beauty and importance. He lived them. Without his knowledge, they penetrated his actions sufficiently to increase still further the distance between himself and his classmates. ”

“ They like to see how far they can make a man forget himself, and how much stronger their own delusive enticements are than prudence, experience and common-sense. And there are flirts of the artful and 'still waters' kind, something like the male flirts spoken of just now ”

“ He becomes assertive, confident, dominating; the male taking a male's place. He discovers that his intellectual processes are more scientific than hers, therefore he concludes they are superior. He finds that he can out-argue her, draw logical conclusions as she cannot. ”

“ With something of wonder, too, was I inspired to see so young a man lead a life so perfectly balanced, so exquisitely sensitive to every fine masculine influence. Possessing to an unusual degree that rare temperament which we call culture, he entered joyously into all that life offered to him, impatient only of hypocrisy and what he called “the copiously pious.” ”

“ When the persons of the drama have made an end of one another, the quietly delighted gentleman steps forward, and blandly remarks, that there was so much virtue, love, and honour in it all, that he could not find it in his heart to interfere, though his own son was one of the victims! ”

“ In the days of romance there were personal perils to confront, and appalling dangers to be surmounted; but now it was a game of life, to be played, not merely with a stout heart and a ready hand, but with a cool head and a steady eye. Young as I was, I had seen a great deal. In that strange comedy of which my father's guests were the performers, there was great insight into character to be gained, and a marvellous knowledge of that skill by which they who live by their wits cultivate these same wits to live. ”

“ Here was the last man in the world whom one would have credited with a sense of beauty, and he was wrought to emotion by a landscape!
'You talk,' said he, 'of your profession not affording you many such moments as this. Now, to my mind, it seems the profession for a man romantically inclined.'
'Does it, indeed, sir?'
'Why, don't you live in a perpetual atmosphere of romance? Think of the mysteries which are your daily food.'
'That's it my daily food, and lodging too. The men who pull on the ropes for a living don't think much, or see much, of the fairy scene they're setting. ”

“ The gay, laughing temperament of some, the dark and serious composure of others; the cautious and reserved, the open and the candid, the witty, the sententious, the clever, the dull, the prudent, the reckless,—in a word, every variety which the innumerable hues of character imprint upon the human face divine are their study. ”

“ The two had agreed that, while, soul-call or no soul-call, a gentleman must keep clear of steamer flirtations, and avoid even the most casual remarks to strange young women in any circumstances, a gentleman of breeding and character may nevertheless follow the world's long trails in search of a never-to-be-forgotten face. ”

“ I only hope, for the sake of the rising male sex generally, that you may be found in as vulnerable and soft-hearted a mood by the first eligible young fellow who appeals to your compassion; ”

“ Young men they seemed, and though I could not see them, I could tell from the fresh, fine voice of the one that he was a true man, and from the sneering, smothered tones of the other that he was not only a cynic, but of vicious tendencies. ”

“ You find his type in fashionable civilised circles, in the languid dude who displays his dreams in his eyes to captivate the hearts of the silly girls, and—discreetly —keeps his mouth shut, to conceal his lack of brains. ”

“ Possessed of every quality that could most delight in society,—brilliant, beautiful and of a truly masculine understanding, she was accurate in judgment, and at a glance could penetrate the secrets of others ”

“ When I write a novel, I choose a human being with whom I feel certain affinities,—or, rather, it is he who chooses me. Once this person has been selected, I leave him perfectly free, I beware of mingling my personality with his. It is a weighty burden, a personality that one has borne for more than half a century. ”

“ Yes, we're boys,—always playing with tongue or with pen, —And I sometimes have asked,—Shall we ever be men? Shall we always be youthful and laughing and gay, Till the last dear companion drops smiling away? ”

“ Regarding males, outside the instinct for self-preservation, which, by the way, is often overshadowed by their great sexual eagerness, no distinguishing characters have been acquired and transmitted, other than those which have been the result of passion, namely, pugnacity and perseverance. ”

“ A gentleman who played practical jokes, and held infamous orgies, and persecuted a wretched foreign woman, whose chief sin and misfortune it was to be his wife; a gentleman who cut out his own nether garments, and left the companion of his gayest revels, the genius whose brightness had flung a spurious lustre upon the dreary saturnalia of vice, to die destitute and despairing. ”

“ Then taking a central figure as protagonist, Everyman or Youth or some such symbol, they brought him into contact with the rest and allowed all the emotion of the play to arise out of the transition of his moods as he is influenced by them in turn. There is never the least doubt as to the lines along which each of these figures will work; they carry their natures in their names. We know that Pride will betray Youth as surely as we know that his Knowledge and Good Deeds alone will bide with Everyman. ”

“ Sometimes I admire your restraint; but just now I am beginning to wonder if— Well, I’m wondering whether you have any masculine traits at all—if you have any pep in you, which is so necessary to holding one’s own in this world—so necessary to success. ”

“ One thinks one knows the character of one's own son, eh? And then, suddenly, a boy—damn it, a man!—George will soon be thirty—a man one is proud of, who is distinguishing himself in his profession—he loses his head about some creature in the theater and proposes to mar his whole career. ”

“ Yet within this odd simulacrum of a worldly, entertaining, and interested gentleman, a living mind surveys the gay scene with a strange, emotionless detachment—just so, perhaps, will it eventually survive the body. We are [126] really alive, conscious that we dislike change, nervous when moved and stood up in another place, and intellectually certain that no real harm can come to us. ”

“ There you have one side of the outer man; and the most has been made of it. "Always figuring, always posturing," we hear. I merely point to the seventy noble generations, the personality made up of that courtly heredity, whose smallest quite spontaneous acts and habits seemed to men worth recording, as showing how the perfect gentleman behaved: a model. Another side is found in the lover of poetry, the devotee of music, the man of keen and intense affections. ”

“ He solaced his loneliness by carrying on imaginary stories, of which he was himself the hero, and which he characteristically kept within the limits of possibility. He could not fancy himself handsome, or a philosopher by any stretch of mind, but he could imagine himself to be clever and chivalrous enough to be attractive to beautiful young women. ”

“ The delicacy of their sex, the vivid perceptibility of their mind, and the soft and engaging virtues of their heart, which weave themselves into the rugged recesses of man's masculine temperament and constitute him a fit member of society, render them entitled to the warmest affections of your heart, and to the generous protection of your arm. ”

“ He had the knack to raise up a pensive temper and mortify an impertinently gay one, as he saw them bear kind or sharp language.
"It is an insolence natural to the wealthy, to affix, as much as in them lies, the character of a man to his circumstances. ”

“ Like most men of his profession, he was almost over familiar with the material side of the question, and, being naturally of delicate fibre, an instinctive revolt made him exaggerate the part which romance was to play in the purification of passion. ”

“ Any extravagance that distinguishes a man from other men appeals equally to their sexual ambition; they confuse the dramatist with the actor, and make no distinction between the virtuoso and the artist. ”