And the very spirit in which he approached it and approached his
death was precisely the one to engrave his last spoken ideas on
the souls of his hearers as nothing else could. No excitement;
no uplift or ecstasy of the martyr; quiet reasoning only; full,
serene, and, for him, common-place command of the faculties of
his mind. The shadow of death made no change in Socrates; how
then should they misunderstand or magnify the power of the shadow
of death?--"How shall we bury you?" asks Crito. Socrates turns
to the others present, and says: "I cannot persuade Crito that I
here am Socrates--I who am now reasoning and ordering discourse.
He imagines Socrates to be that other, whom he will see by and
by, a corpse."--So the scene went on until the last moment, when
"Phaedo veiled his face, and Crito started to his feet, and
Apollodorus, who had never ceased weeping all the time, burst out
into a loud and angry cry which broke down everyone but Socrates."

Someone has said that there is nothing in tragedy or history so
moving as this death of Socrates, as Plato tells it. And yet its
tragic interest, its beauty, is less important, to my thinking,
than the insight it gives us into the methods and mental workings
of an Adept. Put ourselves into the mind of Socrates. He is
going to his death; which to him is about the same as, to us,
going to South Ranch or San Diego. You say I am taking the beauty
and nobility out of it; but no; I am only trying to see what
beauty and nobility look like from within. To him, then, his
death is in itself a matter of no personal moment. But the habit
of his lifetime has been to turn every moment into a blow struck
for the Soul, for the Light, for the Cause of Sublime Perfection.
And here now is the chance to strike the most memorable blow of
all. With infinite calmness he arranges every detail, and
proceeds to strike it. He continues to play the high part of
Socrates,--that is all. You might go to death like a poet, in
love with Death's solemn beauty, you might go to her like a
martyr, forgetting the awe of her in forevision of the splendor
that lies beyond. But this man broadly and publicly goes to her
like Socrates. He will allow her no fascination, no mystery; not
even, nor by any means, equality with the Soul of Man. . . . And
Apollodorus might weep then, and burst into an angry cry; and
Crito and Phaedo and the rest might all break down--_then;_ but
what were they to think afterwards?