Bolivar the Man
I
Simon de Bolivar was about five feet six inches in height, lean of limb and body. His cheek bones stood out prominently in an oval-shaped face, which tapered sharply towards the chin.
His countenance was vivacious; but his skin was furrowed with wrinkles and tanned by exposure to a tropical sun. The curly black hair that once covered Bolivar’s head in luxuriant profusion, began to turn white about 1821. Thenceforth, he was accustomed to wear his hair short.
His nose was long and aquiline. Flexible, sensual lips were often shaded by a thick mustache; while whiskers covered a part of his face. In 1822, Bolivar’s large, black, penetrating eyes, “with the glance of an eagle,” were losing their remarkable brilliancy. At that time, Bolivar had also lost some of the animation, energy, and extraordinary agility which had distinguished him in youth and early manhood. Even the casual observer judged him to be many years older than he really was, so sick and weary did he appear....
A man of many moods, jovial, talkative, taciturn, gloomy, he changed swiftly from sunshine to storm.
William Spence Robertson (Condensed)
II
“Simon de Bolivar has been characterized as the Napoleon of the South American Revolution,...” writes William Spence Robertson, who has been decorated with Bolivar’s Order of the Liberators. “‘Defeat left Bolivar undismayed,’ said O’Leary, who served for a time as an aide-de-camp of the Liberator. ‘Always great, he was greatest in adversity. His enemies had a saying that “when vanquished Bolivar is more terrible than when he conquers.”’”
“There is one point on which all are agreed,” writes F. Loraine Petre, “the generosity of Bolivar, his carelessness of money and his financial uprightness. Few men ever had greater opportunities of enriching themselves; still fewer more honestly refused to take advantage of their opportunities. He commenced life as a rich man, he died almost a pauper....
“The figure of the worn-out Liberator, suffering in mind and body, deserted by all but a few, reviled by the majority of those who owed everything to him, is one of the most pathetic in history.”