He's a man, and he's from Sheffield

Not describing me, in this case, but significant anyway. The point is that these details in the title are taken to explain the subject's inability to cry. That's not been me, not recently at least. Perhaps twenty years ago I was quite different, but in the intervening time, whatever has happened to cause it, I am substantially changed. I spend a decent amount of energy avoiding crying, both by deliberately choosing to stay away from certain situations and by holding the tears back when they come. But I also accept that crying is a part of living, for me at least. It's a fascinating trope in literature, because it marks something about the time, the fashion, whatever it is that matters, whether the (heroic) characters are prone to sensibility, or marked by hardness of heart. Dumas's heroes are archetypically male, swashbuckling and often portrayed as superheroes in modern (re)interpretations. They are susceptible, both in terms of what affects them and how it affects them. They are not less because they cry. 

I started writing this post a couple of days ago. Since then, an entirely different cause for sadness has arisen. Lives begin, lives go on, even as other lives end, but there are some deaths that are so monumentally cruel, where the redemption or the happiness that might run through some goodbyes is so absent, it is impossible to offer any words of comfort to those left behind. So, instead, Catullus leads us in our grief. Ave atque vale.