I LIKE ENTHUSIASTS! Dull eyed people who never get excited about anything are a bit hard to take and make me want to shake them like a bottle of medicine to see if that would make them a bit more stimulating. But enthusiasts! They are a real tonic. Of course the objects of people's enthusiasms are many and varied ranging from stick insects to stamp collecting and from cold baths to hot jazz. Not all these grab me as the saying goes but I find the enthusiasm they inspire is infectious.
The understanding of enthusiasm has varied. In an ancient English churchyard someone had chiselled an epitaph of an old parson's grave. It read: 'He was vicar of this parish for forty years without showing the least sign of enthusiasm'. In fairness to the deceased and the writer of the epitaph it should be known t hat a meaning of the word 'enthusiasm' was not as it might be now 'energy which boils over and runs down the side of the pot'. It could mean 'religious frenzy and fanaticism from which apparently, the late cleric and his congregation were mercifully delivered.
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