The cousins acquiesced. It was precisely that. Hans Castorp, touched by being once more addressed, and pricked by his conscience, praised Herr Settembrini’s words in sounding tones; pronounced them capital; said how spirited they were, how much the language of a literary man. He could not say too much. Undoubtedly, though only superficially, as Herr Settembrini, in his plastic way, had remarked, the comfort on board an ocean steamer did make one forget the element of risk in the circumstances. If he might venture to add anything, he would say it even induced a sort of lightheadedness, a tempting of fate, which the ancients⁠—in his desire to please he quoted the classics!⁠—had called “hubris.” Belshazzar, King of Babylon, and that sort of thing. In short, it came close to being blasphemous. Yet, on the other hand, the luxury of an oceangoing vessel connoted (!) a majestic triumph of the human spirit, it was an honour to humankind, to launch all this comfort and luxury upon the salt sea foam and there sustain it⁠—man thus boldly set his foot, as it were, upon the forces of nature, controlled the wild elements; and that connoted (!) the victory of civilization over chaos⁠—if he might make so free as to employ the phrase.