eccentric as she was tall, clever and disinclined to marry. Ponsonby was considered pretty. When orphaned, she was taken in by her uncle who soon turned his unwelcome eyes on her.
Sarah Ponsonby wrote many lively letters of complaint, to women relations and secretly to her friend Eleanor Butler:
neither my pride, resentment, nor any other passion shall ever be sufficiently powerful to make me give Lady Betty any uneasiness in my power to spare her, and I sometimes laugh to think of the earnestness with which she presses me to be obliging to him, for I have adopted the most reserved mode of behaviour . . . taking no pains when she does not perceive it, to show my disgust and detestation of him. I would rather die than wound Lady Bettyâs heart.
E. MAVOR, LADIES OF LLANGOLLEN: A STUDY IN ROMANTIC FRIENDSHIP (1971)
Butlerâs mother had attempted to persuade Eleanor to enter a convent, but the girl no longer felt the happiness in Catholicism which she had experienced when younger. The two girls left their homes on the last day of March 1778. The following day, Sir Williamâs men caught up with the girls and brought them home, but a few weeks later, they succeeded in escaping together and bought a small cottage in Llangollen. There they developed a âsystemâ to devote their minds to self-improvement. Sarah described it to her aunt Mrs Tighe:
11 April 1783
. . . my B[eloved] has a Book of (I think) very well chosen Extracts from all the Books she has read since we had a home. We record elegant extracts, recipes, nostrums, garden plants, anecdotes, and in a special book, our future projects. We wish to eschew the vanity of society, never to leave home, and to better, in so far as we can, the lot of the poor and unfortunate . . .
TIGHE MS
The daughter of Mrs Tighe, Caroline Hamilton, wrote of their friendship:
I have no cause to think that Lady Eleanor Butler ever repented the steps she had taken, but from a letter I suspect that Miss Ponsonby sometimes expressed regret at having left Ireland. The two ladies continued to the last devoted to each other, and if they had a difference of opinion, they discussed it in a particular walk where they could not be overheard, for as they felt themselves bound to give to the world, an example of perfect friendship, the slightest appearance of discord would have tarnished their reputation.
NLI. MS 4811
FRIENDSHIPS WITH MEN
George Sand, the French novelist, not only fell in love with many men, she maintained lifelong friendships with men even more than with women. To François Rollinat, one of her most intimate and valued friends, a young barrister, practising in Châteauroux, the town near Nohant, she wrote:
Nohant, 1834
I have never felt love for you of any kind, neither moral nor physical; but from the very first day we met I felt for you one of those rare sympathies, those deep unconquerable attractions which no force can alter, because the more deeply one explores then the more one identifies oneâs own soul with the being who inspires this attraction, and shares in it.
I never found you superior to myself either mentally or morally, if I had, perhaps I should have regarded you with that glowing enthusiasm which leads to love.
In a way you were worth more than I, because you were younger, because you had lived less than I in torment, because God had sent you from the first upon a better more firmly marked road than mine. But you come from His creative hand with the same number of virtues and failings, of great qualities, and of miseries as I did.
I know many men who are superior to you, but I shall never have the same depth of affection (it comes from the depths of my being) for them as I have for you. I should never be able to walk with any one of them under the stars all night, as I can with you, without feeling one moment of disagreement or antipathy. And yet we often prolonged these walks and talks until dawn and never without awakening an
Sarah Ponsonby wrote many lively letters of complaint, to women relations and secretly to her friend Eleanor Butler:
neither my pride, resentment, nor any other passion shall ever be sufficiently powerful to make me give Lady Betty any uneasiness in my power to spare her, and I sometimes laugh to think of the earnestness with which she presses me to be obliging to him, for I have adopted the most reserved mode of behaviour . . . taking no pains when she does not perceive it, to show my disgust and detestation of him. I would rather die than wound Lady Bettyâs heart.
E. MAVOR, LADIES OF LLANGOLLEN: A STUDY IN ROMANTIC FRIENDSHIP (1971)
Butlerâs mother had attempted to persuade Eleanor to enter a convent, but the girl no longer felt the happiness in Catholicism which she had experienced when younger. The two girls left their homes on the last day of March 1778. The following day, Sir Williamâs men caught up with the girls and brought them home, but a few weeks later, they succeeded in escaping together and bought a small cottage in Llangollen. There they developed a âsystemâ to devote their minds to self-improvement. Sarah described it to her aunt Mrs Tighe:
11 April 1783
. . . my B[eloved] has a Book of (I think) very well chosen Extracts from all the Books she has read since we had a home. We record elegant extracts, recipes, nostrums, garden plants, anecdotes, and in a special book, our future projects. We wish to eschew the vanity of society, never to leave home, and to better, in so far as we can, the lot of the poor and unfortunate . . .
TIGHE MS
The daughter of Mrs Tighe, Caroline Hamilton, wrote of their friendship:
I have no cause to think that Lady Eleanor Butler ever repented the steps she had taken, but from a letter I suspect that Miss Ponsonby sometimes expressed regret at having left Ireland. The two ladies continued to the last devoted to each other, and if they had a difference of opinion, they discussed it in a particular walk where they could not be overheard, for as they felt themselves bound to give to the world, an example of perfect friendship, the slightest appearance of discord would have tarnished their reputation.
NLI. MS 4811
FRIENDSHIPS WITH MEN
George Sand, the French novelist, not only fell in love with many men, she maintained lifelong friendships with men even more than with women. To François Rollinat, one of her most intimate and valued friends, a young barrister, practising in Châteauroux, the town near Nohant, she wrote:
Nohant, 1834
I have never felt love for you of any kind, neither moral nor physical; but from the very first day we met I felt for you one of those rare sympathies, those deep unconquerable attractions which no force can alter, because the more deeply one explores then the more one identifies oneâs own soul with the being who inspires this attraction, and shares in it.
I never found you superior to myself either mentally or morally, if I had, perhaps I should have regarded you with that glowing enthusiasm which leads to love.
In a way you were worth more than I, because you were younger, because you had lived less than I in torment, because God had sent you from the first upon a better more firmly marked road than mine. But you come from His creative hand with the same number of virtues and failings, of great qualities, and of miseries as I did.
I know many men who are superior to you, but I shall never have the same depth of affection (it comes from the depths of my being) for them as I have for you. I should never be able to walk with any one of them under the stars all night, as I can with you, without feeling one moment of disagreement or antipathy. And yet we often prolonged these walks and talks until dawn and never without awakening an
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