Plato is clothed with
the powers of a poet, stands upon the highest place of the poet, and
(though I doubt he wanted the decisive gift of lyric expression) mainly
is not a poet, because he chose to use the poetic gift to an ulterior
purpose.
Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. Their cousins can tell
you nothing about them. They lived in their writings, and so their
house and street life was trivial and commonplace. If you would know
their tastes and complexions, the most admiring of their readers most
resembles them. Plato, especially, has no external biography. If he
had lover, wife, or children, we hear nothing of them. He ground them
all into paint. As a good chimney burns its smoke, so a philosopher
converts the value of all his fortunes into his intellectual
performances.
He was born 430 A. C., about the time of the death of Pericles; was
of patrician connection in his times and city; and is said to have had
an early inclination for war; but in his twentieth year, meeting with
Socrates, was easily dissuaded from this pursuit, and remained for ten
years his scholar, until the death of Socrates.
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