Maria. To answer such a lengthy post as yours in the"
A Study not in Scarlet" thread would be unfair and against site rules. Answer it I must though, so I will do that here:
Firstly, we are dealing in fantasy here. Holmes himself is just a cardboard creation of Arthur Conan Doyle and does not pertain to be perfect by any means. Indeed his odd ways and strange behaviour are a major part of his character. His views thus, are his alone, but backed by logic. I am not sure what his smoking or cocaine habit have to do with much if you are going to apply your Lizardman theory in judging people? He was created as a highly intelligent man whose strengths were in his ability to eliminate things of no consequence and stick to basic facts. One of those facts in his assesments is that people do not change their personalities overnight. If Darcy is going to emerge as a man of respect and worth, the core necessities must already be there in him. He didn't sit on a chair facing a wall and he was not at a party. He was a total stranger, miles away from home at a public event, the assembly, a dance, with presumably (working on Mrs Bennet's four and twenty families as just a core) maybe a hundred and fifty strangers. He was not even invited there because no one had even heard of him until that evening. He arrived in a presumably crowded, noisy room as Bingley's guest, was assessed by the Meryton marriage interlligence bureau for financial suitability and stayed within his own group not wishing to dance or become introduced around. For this he was classed as "
the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and every body hoped that he would never come there again!" ( Oh, if we could see inside the private lives of those same good citizens) I already admitted he behaved a little rudely, but behaving rudely and being a rude person are different things. My point was that he was a private, somewhat introverted man rather than a totally pompous rude bore. Did the good citizens of Meryton not behave rudely to a man classed thus by people who had never spoken to him or even seen him before the Assembly? How were such opinions formed; gossip and herd instinct at work?
Neither Darcy or Emma Woodhouse were crass, moronic people. They were, in some respects, victims of their society and surroundings but had a core of decency that sometimes behaved less than perfectly, but with both knowing and admitting to that. I find no instances of either Elizabeth Bennet ot George Knighley possessing magic wands. (-:
