proportion! A nervous breakdown waits around the corner for anyone who lets himself wallow in bitterness. Little by little, it takes over your whole being.
Oh, nervous breakdown! Doctors speak of it in a detached, ironical way, emphasizing that the vital organs are in no way disturbed. You are lucky if they donât tell you that you are wasting their time with the evergrowing list of your illnesses â your head, throat, chest, heart, liver â that no X-ray can confirm. And yet what atrocious suffering is caused by nervous breakdowns!
TRANS. M. BODÃ-THOMAS, MARIAMA BÃ, SO LONG A LETTER (1982)
A âROMANTICâ FRIENDSHIP
Women in patriarchal cultures have seldom expressed public understanding of the intense love of Sappho for other women.
In 1790 Mrs Piozzi (formerly Mrs Thrale, whom Dr Johnson loved) wrote that the âQueen of France is at the Head of a Set of Monsters called by each other Sapphists , who boast her example; and deserve to be thrown with the He Demons that haunt each other likewise, into Mount Vesuviusâ. (Thraliana 1776â1809 , ed. K. Balderston, 1951, p. 740). In 1795 she returned to this topic, still upholding views preached by the church and the majority of men: ââTis now grown common to suspect impossibilities (for such I think âem) whenever two Ladies live too much togetherâ (op. cit. p. 949). English social history had scarcely mentioned this topic. It was alluded to as âromantic friendshipâ, a far wider, less scornful term. Fanny Hill, forty years before, had mentioned âsecret biasâ, but there are few allusions to lesbianism. Havelock Ellis wrote in Studies in the Psychology of Sex , Vol. 2, p. 261) that a Miss Hobart was mentioned in the court of Charles II, which shows us âhow rare was the exceptionâ. A century later, however, homosexuality among English women seems to have been regarded by the French as common, and Bacchaumont, on 1 January 1773, recording that Mlle Heinel of the Opera was settling in England, added, âHer taste for women will there find attractive satisfaction, for it is said that London is herein superior to Parisâ.
In the eighteenth century, middle-class daughters, sisters, aunts and some wives were gaining a little leisure to read and study. The notable correspondents reveal that terms often associated today with sexual relationships were mostly confined to literary friendships between women: tenderness, sensibility, shared tastes, even coquetry. For example, a clergymanâs daughter, Miss Carter, who corresponded with Mrs Montagu and Dr Johnson, wrote of a clever girl at Oxford: âMiss Talbot is absolutely my passion; I think of her all day, dream of her all night and one way or other introduce her into every subject I talk ofâ ( Mrs Carterâs Letters Vol. 1 p. 2). Like the Ladies of Llangollen, these women agreed to strict planning of their time, and shunning of town life. They all rose early, to pursue a rigourous course of reading and study of foreign languages, alleviated by long walks or rides, gardening and preserving or embroidery.
âRomantic friendshipâ is a term now lost, yet less marginalizing than âlesbianâ to describe a relationship which includes tenderness, lifelong devotion, shared tastes, probably passion and shared beds. One of the best known, at the end of the eighteenth century is that of the Ladies of Llangollen, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, who ran away to set up house together in 1778. They first had to fight their families, then public opinion, but succeeded in leading the intellectual life they sought together. Their friends and admirers included Wellington and Wordsworth. Wedgwood, Darwin and Sheridan, among many others, visited their âgothickâ cottage in Llangollen.
They were both from aristocratic families, Butler thirty-nine, and Ponsonby twenty-three when they eloped together. Butler was considered
Oh, nervous breakdown! Doctors speak of it in a detached, ironical way, emphasizing that the vital organs are in no way disturbed. You are lucky if they donât tell you that you are wasting their time with the evergrowing list of your illnesses â your head, throat, chest, heart, liver â that no X-ray can confirm. And yet what atrocious suffering is caused by nervous breakdowns!
TRANS. M. BODÃ-THOMAS, MARIAMA BÃ, SO LONG A LETTER (1982)
A âROMANTICâ FRIENDSHIP
Women in patriarchal cultures have seldom expressed public understanding of the intense love of Sappho for other women.
In 1790 Mrs Piozzi (formerly Mrs Thrale, whom Dr Johnson loved) wrote that the âQueen of France is at the Head of a Set of Monsters called by each other Sapphists , who boast her example; and deserve to be thrown with the He Demons that haunt each other likewise, into Mount Vesuviusâ. (Thraliana 1776â1809 , ed. K. Balderston, 1951, p. 740). In 1795 she returned to this topic, still upholding views preached by the church and the majority of men: ââTis now grown common to suspect impossibilities (for such I think âem) whenever two Ladies live too much togetherâ (op. cit. p. 949). English social history had scarcely mentioned this topic. It was alluded to as âromantic friendshipâ, a far wider, less scornful term. Fanny Hill, forty years before, had mentioned âsecret biasâ, but there are few allusions to lesbianism. Havelock Ellis wrote in Studies in the Psychology of Sex , Vol. 2, p. 261) that a Miss Hobart was mentioned in the court of Charles II, which shows us âhow rare was the exceptionâ. A century later, however, homosexuality among English women seems to have been regarded by the French as common, and Bacchaumont, on 1 January 1773, recording that Mlle Heinel of the Opera was settling in England, added, âHer taste for women will there find attractive satisfaction, for it is said that London is herein superior to Parisâ.
In the eighteenth century, middle-class daughters, sisters, aunts and some wives were gaining a little leisure to read and study. The notable correspondents reveal that terms often associated today with sexual relationships were mostly confined to literary friendships between women: tenderness, sensibility, shared tastes, even coquetry. For example, a clergymanâs daughter, Miss Carter, who corresponded with Mrs Montagu and Dr Johnson, wrote of a clever girl at Oxford: âMiss Talbot is absolutely my passion; I think of her all day, dream of her all night and one way or other introduce her into every subject I talk ofâ ( Mrs Carterâs Letters Vol. 1 p. 2). Like the Ladies of Llangollen, these women agreed to strict planning of their time, and shunning of town life. They all rose early, to pursue a rigourous course of reading and study of foreign languages, alleviated by long walks or rides, gardening and preserving or embroidery.
âRomantic friendshipâ is a term now lost, yet less marginalizing than âlesbianâ to describe a relationship which includes tenderness, lifelong devotion, shared tastes, probably passion and shared beds. One of the best known, at the end of the eighteenth century is that of the Ladies of Llangollen, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, who ran away to set up house together in 1778. They first had to fight their families, then public opinion, but succeeded in leading the intellectual life they sought together. Their friends and admirers included Wellington and Wordsworth. Wedgwood, Darwin and Sheridan, among many others, visited their âgothickâ cottage in Llangollen.
They were both from aristocratic families, Butler thirty-nine, and Ponsonby twenty-three when they eloped together. Butler was considered
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