means that we are to drive out all warmth from our hearts, all
desire from our imaginations. There is a child's heart at the
bottom of every one of our hearts-ever young, full of laughter and
tears; and that is what we shall have killed before we are "fitted
for the battle of life," as they put it. No, no--that is what we
ought to preserve; we were given it for that! (HARALD hides his
face in his hands, and sits so for some time.)

Mrs. Evje. Any mother or any wife knows that.

Evje (standing with his back to the fire). You want to bring back
the age of romance, doctor!

The Doctor (with a laugh). Not its errors--because in those days
unclean minds brought to birth a great deal that was unclean.
(Seriously.) But what is it, when all is said and done, but a
violent protest on the part of the Teutonic people against the
Romanesque spirit and school--a remarkable school, but not _ours_.
To us it seems a barren, merely intellectual school--a mere mass of
formulas which led to a precocious development of the mind. And
that was the spirit it bred--critical and barren. But these schools
of thought are now all we have, and both of them are bad for us!
They have no use for the heart or the imagination; they do not
breed faith or a longing for high achievement. Look at _our_ life!
Is our life really our own?

Mrs. Evje. No. You have only to think of our language, our tastes,
our society, our--

The Doctor (interrupting her). Those are the externals of our life,