the beautiful possibilities of Souls; and loved them as such,
and drew them towards their soulhood. Such love and insight is
the first and strongest weapon of the Teacher: who sees divinity
within the rough-hewn personalities of men as the sculptor sees
the God within the marble; and calls it forth. He 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