Alternate Chapter 4

Sir Henry returned to the Coleworths a few days later. Towards the end of the conversation-filled meal, Catherine asked Sir Henry, "If we do not agree with the dialectic process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, what is the good of a conversation? Do we always need to maintain diversity?”

Glad that she was keeping up with the conversation, Sir Henry explained, "Diversity will always be maintained because everything imagined already exists, or else it could not be imagined. If a synthesis is created, it becomes a third thing. The third thing may be preferable to both conversants, but the other two things should not be seen as being destroyed by the process. They remain options. People tend to like to burn bridges because keeping the other options open produces anxiety and insecurity. I suggest that the reason for the insecurity does not lie in the likelihood of a person changing their mind, but in the individualized value of necessity placed on one of the options to the exclusion of the rest. This is not to say that one option should not be thus valued, but the insecurity associated with it may have unhealthy factors attached. Reasons become all-important. Not objectives. Determining reasons then becomes the goal of conversation. Could your reason for asking be based on a fear of silence?"

"Hmm. Perhaps. Silence and the connotation of lack of relationship that goes along with it."

"Ah. Relationship is the mysterious element when things are allowed to maintain their diversity. What would conversation be like then, individuals explaining their differences?"

"I suppose a response could be to point out similarities."

"Similarities amongst diverse individuals. One could be afraid, again a reason, not a negation of the possibility, of losing individuality if similarities are focused on."

"Then one could discuss the value of fear or move beyond that to the relationship of similarity to diversity."

"How like a woman to keep bringing it back to relationship! Or how about a comparison, contrast of synthesis to relationship? Actually, I wonder if there is such a thing as a synthesis. In chemistry, a solution is able to retain the properties of both the solvent and the solute, though the solvent keeps its dominant physical properties."

"When a person drinks a glass of highly concentrated salt-water, which are you most aware of, the water or the salt?" Catherine said, not the least flustered.

Sir Henry, however, was. He quickly recovered. "Tasting being the required step to detect the diversity."

Now it was Catherine’s turn to fluster. The others busied themselves preparing the table for clearing.

"Comparing and contrasting tasting to the other senses involved, mainly sight and touch, would be an interesting conversation."

"Maybe too interesting, which would be a reason not to have it now." Then to the family, "Thank you for the delightful evening. I must be going."