He is never sick or sorry; he is
poor and has a scolding wife; he fasts or eats as circumstances
dictate; he never does anything in particular, but he has always
infinite leisure to have his talk out. Is he drawn for military
service? he goes off, with an entire indifference to the hardships
of the campaign. When the force is routed, he stalks deliberately
off the field, looking round him like a great bird, with the kind
of air that makes pursuers let people alone, as Alcibiades said.
And when the final catastrophe draws near, he defends himself under
a capital charge with infinite good-humour; he has cared nothing
for slander and misrepresentation all his life, and why should he
begin now? In the last inspired scene, he is the only man of the
group who keeps his courteous tranquillity to the end; he had been
sent into the world, he had lived his life, why should he fear to
be dismissed? It matters little, in the presence of this august
imagination, if the real Socrates was a rude and prosy person, who
came by his death simply because the lively Athenians could
tolerate anything but a bore!
The Socratic attitude is better than the high-bred attitude; it is
better than the stoical attitude; it is even better than the pious
attitude, because it depends upon living life to the uttermost,
rather than upon detaching oneself from what one considers rather a
poor business.
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