was wont to
joke over his calling; his mother, said he, had been a midwife,
assisting at the birth of men's bodies; he himself was a midwife
of souls. How he drew men to him--of the power he had--let
Alcibiades bear witness. "As for myself," says Alcibiades, "were
I not afraid you would think me more drunk than I am, I would
tell you on oath how his words have moved me--ay, and how they
move me still. When I listen to him my heart beats with a more
than Corybantic excitement; he has only to speak and my tears
flow. Orators, such as Pericles, never moved me in this way--
never roused my soul to the thought of my servile condition: but
this man makes me think that life is not worth living so long as
I am what I am. Even now, if I were to listen, I could not
resist. So there is nothing for me but to stop my ears against
this siren's song and fly for my life, that I may not grow old
sitting at his feet. No one would ever think that I had shame in
me; but I am ashamed in the presence of Socrates."

Poor Alciabes! whom Socrates loved so well, and tried so hard to
save; and who could only preserve his lower nature for its own
and for his city's destruction by stopping his ears against his
Teacher! Alcibiades, whose genius might have saved Athens...
only Athens would not be saved... and he could not have saved
her, because he had stopped his ears against the man who made him
ashamed; and because his treacherous lower nature was always
there to thwart and overturn the efficacy of his genius;--what a
picture of duality it is!

Socrates gave up his art; because art was no longer useful as an
immediate lever for the age. He knew poetry well, but insisted,
as Professor Murray I think says, on always treating it as the
baldest of prose. There was poetry about, galore; and men did
not profit by it: something else was needed. His mission was to
the Athens of his day; he was going to save Athens if he could.
So he went into the marketplace, the agora, and loafed about (so
to say), and drew groups of young men and old about him, and
talked to them. The Delphic Oracle had made pronouncement:
_Sophocles is wise; Euripides is wiser; but Socrates is the
wisest of mankind._ Sometimes, you see, the Delphic Oracle could
get off a distinctly good thing. But Socrates, with his usual
sense of humor, had never considered himself in that light at
all; oldish, yes; and funny, and ugly, by all means;--but wise!
He thought at first, h