Portrait in Prose of a Colorful Man – by and Unnamed Writer

There now lives among us a boorish and coarse self-appointed king, whose ideas, though somewhat polished and sharpened by education and experience are still large, florid, and untrammeled, as becomes the half of him which is barbaric. He is a man of exuberant fancy, and, withal, of an authority so irresistible that, at his will, he turns his varied fancies into facts. He is greatly given to self-communing, and, when he and himself agree upon anything, the thing is done. When every member of his domestic and political systems moves smoothly in its appointed course, his nature is bland and genial; but, whenever there is a little hitch, and some of his orbs get out of their orbits, his actions are driven by his barbaric instinct to survive, and nothing pleases him so much as to make the crooked straight and crush down uneven places.

My Comments

I could not have written the description above because I don’t have the skills, and my writing style, which is sometimes flowery, is not so flamboyant and overtly stylish as this. I did edit the text, though slightly, taking pains not to alter the details of the description, which I think is remarkable and to the point. The writer has painted a portrait so colorful and descriptive that you know the man immediately from what you’ve heard him say and seen him do. You know too that the man gets blind obedience from most of his fervent subjects, though some have a love-hate relationship with him. But enough, the description fits the man. Who will dispute that? Leave me your comments.