Page:Xenophon by Alexander Grant.djvu/97



'Memorabilia'—or, as the Greek name should rather have been translated, the 'Memoranda'—the 'Recollections,' or 'Notes from the Conversations,' of Socrates, ranks second by general repute among the works of Xenophon. But it is the interest of the name of Socrates, and the fact of its professing to be a genuine matter-of-fact record of what he said, that gives this book its importance. Xenophon had not in reality the qualifications of a Boswell. We have always a feeling, in reading the conversations which he records, that his notes could only have been accurate in a lower sense. The matter of the dialogue was given, or attempted to be given, but the delicacy of the form was lost. The words employed look like paraphrase reports of the substance of what Socrates said, or appeared to Xenophon to say, and they fail to bring the distinctive personality of the speaker before us. Plato, as most people are aware, wrote imaginary philosophical dialogues in which he constantly introduces Socrates. And it is to these imaginary and dramatic dialogues