merely the externals! No, look within--look at such a view of life
as we were talking about, clamouring for "hardening"--is that ours?
Can we, for all our diligence, make as much way in it as, for
instance, a born Parisian journalist?--become like a bar of steel
with a point at each end, a pen-point and a sword-point? _We_
can't do that; the Teutonic temperament is not fitted for it.

Evje. Oh, we are well on the way towards it. Look at the heartless
intolerance in our politics; it will soon match what you were
describing.

Harald. Everyone that disagrees with you is either an ambitious
scoundrel, or half mad, or a blockhead.

The Doctor (laughing). Yes, and here in the north, in our small
communities, where a man meets all his enemies in the same barber's
shop, we feel it as keenly as if we were digging our knives into
each other! (Seriously.) We may laugh at it, but if we could add up
the sum of suffering that has been caused to families and to
individuals--if we could see the concrete total before us--we
should be tempted to believe that our liberty had been given to us
as a curse! For it _is_ a cursed thing to destroy the humanity that
is in us, and make us cruel and hard to one another.

Harald (getting up, but standing still). But, my good friends, if
you are of the same mind about that, and I with you--what is the
next thing to do?

The Doctor. The next thing to do?