Oh courage… oh yes! If only one had that… Then life might be livable, in spite of everything.

The speaker treats courage not as heroic bravado but as the inner resource that makes endurance possible. The ellipses and repetition (“Oh courage… oh yes!”) suggest a sudden, aching recognition: what is missing is not intelligence, morality, or even hope, but the nerve to act or to go on. The conditional phrasing (“If only one had that… Then life might be livable”) frames courage as a prerequisite for turning mere survival into a bearable existence, even when circumstances remain bleak (“in spite of everything”). In Ibsen’s dramatic world, this often resonates with characters trapped by social expectation, guilt, or self-deception, for whom courage would mean facing truth and consequence.