about to
raise a sum. But now the death of his friend and Teacher struck
him like a great gale amidships; and he was transformed, another
man; and the great Star Plato rose, that shines still; the
great Voice Plato was lifted to speak for the Soul and to be
unequaled in that speaking, in the west, until H.P. Blavatsky came.

------
* Murray: _Ancient Greek Literature:_--whence all this as to
Plato's youth.
------

But note what a change had taken place with the ending of the
fifth century. Hitherto all the great Athenians had been great
Athenians. Aeschylus, witness of eternity, had cried his message
down to Athens and to his fellow-citizens; he had poured the
waters of eternity into the vial of his own age and place. I
speak not of Sophocles, who was well enough rewarded with the
prizes Athens had to give him. Euripides again was profoundly
concerned with his Athens; and though he was contemned by and
held aloof from her, it was the problems of Athens and the time
that ate into his soul. Socrates came to save Athens; he did not
seek political advancement, but would hold office when it came
his way; was enough concerned in politics to be considered a
moderate-one cause of his condemnation; but above all devoted
himself to raising the moral tone of the Athenian youth and
clearing their minds of falsity. Finally, he gave loyalty to his
city and its laws as one reason for rejecting Crito's plan for
his escape. What he hoped and lived for was, to save Athens; and
he was the more content to die, when he saw that this was no
longer possible.

But Plato had no part nor lot in Athens. He loathed her doctrine
of democracy, as knowing it could come to no good. He had
affiliations, like Aeschylus, in Sicily, whither he made
certain journeys; and might have stayed there among his fellow
Pythagoreans, but for the irascible temper of Dionysius. But much
more, and most of all, his affiliations were in the wide Cosmos
and all time: as if he foresaw that on him mainly would devolve
the task of upholding spiritual ideas in Europe through the
millenniums to come. He dwelt apart, and taught in the Groves of
Academe outside the walls. Let Athens' foolish politics go
forward as they might, or backward--he would meddle with nothing.
It has been brought against him that he did nothing to help his
city 'in her old age and dotage'; well, he had the business of
thousands of coming years and peoples to attend to, and had no
time to be