Verb

He did not destroy the reality by the exhibition of more energy than belongs to the exhausted powers of a dying man; he did not caricature and posturize in the representation of this awful close of human life.

Nobber has no small opinion of himself: he considers himself the Adonis of the Pondaati eleven, and he contemplates society as though it were Venus, and it was his mission to posturize before it, and coquette and toy with it.