"Lizzy, does this not make you extremely nervous?"
"No, Margie, it does not. Perhaps it should, but it does not."
"I must own that I am petrified."
"You need not stay, Margie. I am perfectly well here by myself and would never wish to push you to do anything you do not want to do."
"Who says I do not wish to do it?"
"That's the spirit!"
Elizabeth was quite enjoying standing high on a red rock cliff in the Moorlands of Derbyshire, looking over a landscape that looked both dead and vibrantly alive, boring and fascinating, light and dark, all at the same time, while the wind whipped her dress and hair into a frenzy.
The cliff face she was standing on was red rock of some sort, and she looked over a windswept valley that looked like another world. There were wide swaths of purple, yellow and blue flowers seemingly laid down with an artist's brush just for her pleasure. The land was segregated with roads that she had read dated back to Roman times, and the legend is that the Romans just built on tracks that had already been in wide use for centuries or millennia. Some areas were dotted with lakes, and wide swathes of grasses of all colors of the rainbow. The valley floor was dotted with small hillocks that seemed like they could be homes for elves, dwarves or some other fairy folk.
Climbing up from the valley, the view was surrounded by other rocks and cliffs much like the one she was standing on, but in other colors from grays to reds to blacks. It truly was a magical place, and she wanted to drink it all in.
She thought about Margaret's fear, which was an entirely appropriate response to standing in high winds on a cliff face, and naturally her father appeared in front of her to pontificate on the matter. Sometimes Elizabeth wondered if her father ever did anything but pontificate or read books in preparation for later pontification.
≈ You will find Lizzy that fear, and rationality are only peripherally connected. People are afraid of things that are quite safe rationally, and completely unafraid of things a sensible person would run from in horror. Spiders and snakes are rarely dangerous but frequently frightening. Riding a horse is rarely frightening but always dangerous. It is quite a conundrum. And this does not only apply to fear. It is worthwhile remembering that many, if not most, of our thoughts and actions are driven by emotion, and if it happens to match up with our rational thinking, we use the logic as a convenient excuse to go along with the feeling. Most of the time it works out because our feelings are far more sensible than our rational minds, but occasionally, you will have to step back, think carefully and determine which is to be master and which slave. ≈
Mr. Bennet's ghost was similarly enjoying the thrill of the place, coupled with the pleasure of a good (and lengthy) lecture well‑delivered, although the wind obviously had no effect. Her friend Margaret Wythe, on the other hand, was looking much less certain about the operation, but was bravely sticking it out as if to prove to herself and the world that she could.
Elizabeth was often conflicted about her father, thinking he did not do all that a patriarch ought. Sometimes she believed that she and her sisters were given none of the tools they needed in life save a headstrong personality; but at other times she thought that was the best gift parents could possibly give. She had narrowly dodged two offers of marriage, with varying measures of disagreeableness, through nothing but pure willfulness. While she as not quite so adamant against being Mrs. Darcy as she had been, a dream of being Mrs. Collins could still make a dead woman wake up in her coffin screaming.
For the moment, Elizabeth was willing to give her father the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps give Margaret some of the benefit of her father's insight. Their discussions about her family over the previous weeks had all been an unusual combination of vague and specific. Margaret would probably recognize and accurately name any of her sisters if exposed to them, but everyone had been careful to refrain from asking any overly awkward or specific questions.
Lizzy looked at her friend, looking quite frightened but determined to stick it out, and decided to talk to her.
"It is most peculiar, Margie! On the one hand, you are quite correct to be afraid – terrified if that works better for you. Any sensible person would be. However, perhaps you can look at it another way. Would you care to discuss it, or just leave? Certainly, nobody would fault you for it."
"I am all ears, Lizzy."
Elizabeth chuckled, wrapped her arm around her friend, and said, "You see, my father taught me that emotion drives much of our behavior, with rationality playing a second fiddle, being at best able to direct the emotion from time to time. It is an idea that has been around since the ancients. Does that make sense?"
"Vaguely, Lizzy."
"Let us try rationality for just a moment. What happens if the worst comes about; the wind shifts or we lose our footing, and one or both of us tumble off the edge?"
Margaret turned a bit paler, and said, "I should think we would be bashed into a thousand pieces, but we would only mind the ones that came before the one that killed us."
"Exactly. Now, what are the real chances of that happening?"
Margie looked around fearfully, and said, "I suppose not all that high. It is more likely than if we were standing back down the path with my more sensible parents, but not so very likely in rational terms."
Lizzy nodded, and said, "More sensible, indeed. You do know that I quite like your parents. Your mother is quite something, and I admire her immensely. Your father is as clever and sensible as mine on his good days but is far more industrious. By all rights, I should be quite jealous of you because your parents are superior to mine in every rational way, and yet I am not."
Margaret gave a bit of a laugh, and said, "This applies to falling off this cliff how?"
Elizabeth laughed and said, "Well, do you ride?"
"Yes, I love horses. It is one of my favorite things."
"Do you run, trot, jump?"
"Oh yes, all of those things."
"And when you are running your horse, feeling the wind in your hair across a field, what are the chances he will step in a rabbit hole, get startled by a rabbit or deer, or just lose his way or get a twitch, sending you tumbling through the air?"
Margaret gave it some thought, and said, "I see your point. It is at least as likely as the wind shifting and knocking me over that edge, and probably more so, since I am riding on an animal with its own feelings and quirks across terrain that I did not personally inspect."
"Yes, that is it! You will be on this edge for perhaps twenty minutes during the whole of your life, but hour upon hour on the back of a horse; and yet you are afraid here and not there?"
Margaret gave it some thought, and said, "I see your point. It makes no sense to be afraid here."
"Ah, but therein lies the thrill. I can come up here and experience the fear, because I can let my rational mind convince me it is as safe as riding in a carriage, which it is… but my mind is as tempted as yours to be terrified. I can control it enough to enjoy the experience. I have done similar things often enough that I do not get to the edge of terror as I did when I was younger, but I still experience the thrill."
Margie laughed, stepped away from Lizzy and let out a loud whoop while waving her hands in the air.
Elizabeth laughed, and said, "That is the spirit! Now let us enjoy the rest of the few minutes we have before your entirely sensible parents panic and call us back to responsibility and sensibility."
Margaret laughed, and both girls walked right up to the edge, and peered over it as if the secrets of life itself could be found in the depths of the red rock of the canyon.
Twenty minutes later, they were back on their way to meet with their sensible companions. Mr. and Mrs. Wythe were as predicted nearly into a full panic. Mr. Wythe had almost gotten to the point where he might put his pipe out before it was fully empty of tobacco and might even have had the radical thought to put down his book. Mrs. Wythe looked like she might even have quartered an apple with one portion smaller than the rest. It was terrible.
"Well, ladies… I see you enjoyed your excursion?"
"Oh, yes, Papa. Lizzy and I were talking about emotions versus rationality. It was very interesting."
"My father and I discussed it, Mr. Wythe."
The father chuckled, and said, "I would hope to meet your father, Miss Bennet."
Elizabeth smiled and said, "You know of course you are all welcome at Longbourn any time. Perhaps you can leave Margie in my care sometime?"
Mrs. Wythe had not heard of the nicknames before but nodded in appreciation. It seemed that her Margaret's desire for an intimate friend was being well satisfied.
Twenty minutes later, they had enjoyed a small repast, and were in the carriage heading back south, towards the village of Sudbury and the Haddon Estate.
A/N: Yes, I perhaps overuse diminutive names, but Margie has a history. My mother is named Margaret, and went by Margie all her life, so I just borrowed it. (HI MOM!)
Wade