Esprit17 as un-Greek. – The Greeks are indescribably logical and simple in all their thought; at least in their long good age they never wearied of this, as so often do the French, who all too gladly take a little leap into the opposite and actually only endure the spirit of logic when, through a series of such small leaps into the opposite, it betrays its sociable civility, its sociable self-denial. Logic strikes them as necessary, like bread and water, but also, like these, as a kind of prisoners’ food as soon as it is enjoyed pure and plain. In good company one must never want to be entirely and solely right, which is what all pure logic wants; hence the small dose of unreason in all French esprit. The Greeks’ sense of sociability was far less developed than that of the French is and was; that is why there is so little esprit in even their most spirited men; that is why there is so little humour in even their humorists; that is why – oh! One will not even believe these sentences of mine, and how many more of the same sort are yet on my mind! – Est res magna tacere18 – says Martial along with all garrulous people.