Their ardor is their crown, before which the languid and the passive bow.
But if enthusiasm is irresistible in youth, how much more so is it when carried into old age! Gladstone at eighty had ten times the weight and power that any man of twenty-five would have with the same ideals.

The glory of age is only the glory of its enthusiasm, and the respect paid to white hairs is reverence to a heart fervent, in spite of the torpid influence of an enfeebled body.

The "Odyssey" was the creation of a blind old man, but that old man was Homer.
The contagious zeal of an old man, Peter the Hermit, rolled the chivalry of Europe upon the ranks of Islam.
Dandolo, the Doge of Venice, won battles at ninety-four, and refused a crown at ninety-six.

Wellington planned and superintended fortifications at eighty.

Bacon and Humboldt were enthusiastic students to the last gasp.