Page:The story of Greece told to boys and girls.djvu/292

 of endurance he was superior not only to me, but to everybody; there was no one to be compared to him, yet at a festival he was the only person who had any real power of enjoyment.'

'Cold, too,' Alcibiades said, 'Socrates could bear without flinching. The winter at Potidæa was severe, the frost intense. The Athenian soldiers stayed indoors when they could; when they were forced to be out they put on as many extra clothes as they could find, their feet they swathed in felt and fleeces.'

But Socrates, 'with his bare feet on the ice and in his ordinary dress, marched better than the other soldiers who had shoes, and they looked daggers at him, because he seemed to despise them.'

Yet another tale of his endurance Alcibiades told to the listening company.

'One morning,' he said, 'Socrates was thinking about something which he could not resolve; he would not give it up, but continued thinking from early dawn until noon—there he stood, fixed in thought; and at noon attention was drawn to him, and the rumour ran through the wondering crowd that Socrates had been standing and thinking about something ever since the break of day. At last, in the evening, after supper, some Ionians out of curiosity (it was now summer) brought out their mats and slept in the open air that they might watch him, and see whether he would stand all night. There he stood all night until the following morning, and with the return of light he offered up a prayer to the sun and went his way.'

Not even yet had Alcibiades exhausted the praises of his master, and the gay company listened spell-bound and bewildered to the young noble. They had not guessed how well he loved, how gravely he had studied the words and ways of Socrates. Now it was of the courage of his master that he wished to tell, for Socrates had saved his life in battle.