No contrast is greater than a man on the pinnacle, erect in stature, confident, supercilious; and the same man in the pit, bent, irresolute, and serv… - Alexander Bryan Johnson

In Boresko, the government, though imperial, grants the people some power. They collect annually, and, marching to the palace, signify to the emperor their wishes, which he is constrained to respect. To march at the head of such a procession confers power and influence, and those who thus march are called political leaders.

After hearing incessantly that the people follow him without sense or discretion, he [the political leader] is liable to fall a victim of the delusion which he has created, and to imagine that he possesses some personal attraction, by virtue of which he is followed. The delusion soon develops itself. He will diverge from the authorized track... From habit, the people will move a little in his erratic course. Their compliance augments his delusion, and he will become increasingly regardless of the popular will, and more obstinately intent on his own. He soon becomes monomaniac, and is abandoned except by a few stragglers as crazy as himself; while he interprets the abandonment into ingratitude or heterodoxy, and grows scurrilous, turbulent, and impotent.

Man exists in a world of his own creation. He cannot step, but on ground transformed by culture; nor look, but on objects produced by art. The animals which constitute his food are unknown to nature, while trees, fruits, and herbs, are the trophies of his labour. In himself nearly every natural impulse is suppressed as vicious, and every mortification solicited as a virtue. His language, actions, sentiments, and desires are nearly all factitious. Stupendous in achievement, he is boundless in attempt. Having subdued the earth's surface, he would explore its centre; having vanquished diseases, he would subdue death. Unsatisfied with recording the past, he would anticipate the future. Uncontented with subjugating the ocean, he would traverse the air. Success but sharpens his avidity, and facility but augments his impatience.