Will Durant

It took me a few years to read his dozen thick volumes of "The Story of Civilization." What a vocabulary! - I had to have a dictionary at my side at all times. Once, just for fun, I tried to use some of his words: "I speak to you from my seraglio - such as it is. I speak as a tonsured patriarch. My message is esoteric - hopefully erudite. I speak wiyhout avarice, hopefully euphoniously, but with rubicund integument should I be perceived as concupiscent as I am in no way profligate."