--and they are the best pair you have got!

Dr. Stockmann. You should never wear your best trousers when you go out
to fight for freedom and truth. It is not that I care so much about the
trousers, you know; you can always sew them up again for me. But that
the common herd should dare to make this attack on me, as if they were
my equals--that is what I cannot, for the life of me, swallow!

Mrs. Stockmann. There is no doubt they have behaved very ill toward
you, Thomas; but is that sufficient reason for our leaving our native
country for good and all?

Dr. Stockmann. If we went to another town, do you suppose we should not
find the common people just as insolent as they are here? Depend upon
it, there is not much to choose between them. Oh, well, let the curs
snap--that is not the worst part of it. The worst is that, from one end
of this country to the other, every man is the slave of his Party.
Although, as far as that goes, I daresay it is not much better in the
free West either; the compact majority, and liberal public opinion, and
all that infernal old bag of tricks are probably rampant there too. But
there things are done on a larger scale, you see. They may kill you,
but they won't put you to death by slow torture. They don't squeeze a
free man's soul in a vice, as they do here. And, if need be, one can
live in solitude. (Walks up and down.) If only I knew where there was a
virgin forest or a small South Sea island for sale, cheap--

Mrs. Stockmann. But think of the boys, Thomas!

Dr. Stockmann (standing still). What a strange woman you are,
Katherine! Would you prefer to have the boys grow up in a society like
this? You saw for yourself last night that half the population are out
of their minds; and if the other half have not lost their senses, it is
because they are mere brutes, with no sense to lose.

Mrs. Stockmann. But, Thomas dear, the imprudent things you said had
something to do with it, you know.

Dr. Stockmann. Well, isn't what I said perfectly true? Don't they turn
every idea topsy-turvy? Don't they make a regular hotchpotch of right
and wrong? Don't they say that the things I know are true, are lies?
The craziest part of it all is the fact of these "liberals," men of
full age, going about in crowds imagining that they are the
broad-minded party! Did you ever hear anything like it, Katherine!

Mrs. Stockmann. Yes, yes, it's mad enough of them, certainly;
but--(PETRA comes in from the silting-room