Meanwhile, the force of the nations who were destined to achieve the coming transformation was unexhausted; their physical and mental faculties were unimpaired.

No ages of enervating luxury, of intellectual endeavor, of life artificially preserved or ingeniously prolonged, had sapped the fiber of the men who were about to inaugurate the modern world.

Severely nurtured, unused to delicate living, these giants of the Renaissance were like boys in their capacity for endurance, their inordinate appetite for enjoyment.

No generations, hungry, sickly, effete, critical, disillusioned, trod them down.

Ennui and the fatigue that springs from skepticism, the despair of thwarted effort, were unknown.