As the world becomes increasingly grumpy, the courteous gentleman has the opportunity not only to make a difference in the lives of others, but also to distinguish himself.
Here are some thoughts (notes-to-self, really) on being that kind of man.
On greeting others with enthusiasm, like you're actually happy to see them--
And, of course, your courtesy becomes all the more potent when you do it from a position of strength.
You are not nice, not domesticated, not a pushover hiding weakness behind manners--you are a potentially dangerous man who chooses kindness and warmth.
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On September 12, 1683, one of the greatest cavalry charges in history took place at Kahlenberg Hill, overlooking Vienna, where Jan III Sobieski and his winged hussars saved Christendom from disaster. 🧵
Just a few days back, the Viennese fired distress rockets into the night sky to let any friends who might be out there know that they needed help—now or never. The city had been under siege for almost two months by the Ottoman Turks.
The Turks had already blasted multiple breaches in the walls and the Austrians only barely repulsed them. They couldn't hold out much longer.
A lesson to taken from the legend of the dragon of Silene is that when men fail to confront the evil before them the price will be their children's blood. Another lesson is that one brave man can change everything. 🧵
Long before St George's arrival on the scene, the city of Silene had been terrorized by a dragon with "envenoming" breath. The townspeople went with weapons to meet him. "And when they saw him," the Golden Legend says, "they fled."
It continues: "And when he came nigh the city he venomed the people with his breath, and therefore the people of the city gave to him every day two sheep for to feed him, because he should do no harm to the people."
On August 31, 1217, Fernando III—one of the greatest men nobody's ever heard of—was crowned King of Castile.
He was eighteen years old and would spend his illustrious reign reclaiming more land from the Moors than any other king of the Reconquista. 🧵
Fernando never lost a battle against the Moors. He took Cazorla, Úbeda, Niebla, Murcia, Cartagena, Jaén, and more. He took Cordoba and reclaimed the bells of Santiago. He took the jewel of Al-Andalus, Sevilla, after an impossible siege.
By the time of his death in 1252, the Reconquista was practically finished—with only Granada remaining to the Moors (and reduced to a vassal-state of Castile). The Pope named him Athleta Christi for his defense of Christendom.
In one of the most important lines in the books, Gandalf offers insight into this virtue by highlighting its opposite: “Despair,” he says, “is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.”
As long as you don't know how things will end, you'd better fight on.
Gandalf is hardly the most upbeat and chipper fellow. At one point he confesses that the whole campaign might have been just a “fool’s hope.” And yet he presses forth. He will go till he can go no more.
The Arthurian saga is a meditation on the virtue of loyalty.🧵
Of course the rest of the knightly virtues are embodied in these adventures, but loyalty is a special concern—the possibilities that arise when loyalty is the law, and the disasters that follow when betrayal creeps in. Kingdoms are at stake.
One of the most iconic moments in all of folklore is a simple act of loyalty. When he first approaches the sword in the stone, young Arthur Pendragon stakes no claim to be king, nor does he even understand the significance of what he’s about to do.
George Castriot Scanderbeg—
His story might as well have been written by a novelist rather than a historian—almost too wild to be believed. I've only just begun Barleti's book and it's already one of the most harrowing things I've ever read.🧵
The legend of Scanderbeg is set in motion when he, youngest son of an Albanian nobleman, is taken by the Ottomans at age eight, indoctrinated into Ottoman ways, forced to convert to Islam, subjected to all sorts of Ottoman horrors.
He is trained as a soldier and rises to the top of the sultan’s army. Scanderbeg brings the sultan victory after victory, wins public duels against foreign champions for the sultan's honor, and by all appearances the Albanian boy has become the Turks' greatest warrior.