In commenting on the perfect compatibility of activity with
longevity, the National Popular Review says:--
"Great men usually carry their full mental vigor and activity
into old age. M. Chevreul, M. De Lesseps, Gladstone, and Bismarck
are evidences of this anthropologic fact. Pius IX, although
living in tempestuous times, reached a great age in full
possession of all his faculties, and the dramatist Crebillon
composed his last dramatic piece at ninety-four, while Michael
Angelo was still painting his great canvases at ninety-eight, and
Titian at ninety still worked with all the vigor of his earlier
years. The Austrian General Melas was still in the saddle and
active at eighty-nine, and would have probably won Marengo but
for the inopportune arrival of Desaix. The Venetian Doge Henry
Dandolo, born at the beginning of the eleventh century, who lost
his eyesight when a young man, was nevertheless subsequently
raised to the highest office in the republic, managed
successfully to conduct various wars, and at the advanced age of
eighty-three, in alliance with the French, besieged and captured
Constantinople. Fontenelle was as gay-spirited at ninety-eight as
in his fortieth year, and the philosopher Newton worked away at
his tasks at the age of eighty-three with the same ardor that
animated his middle age.
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