We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.
FIELD NOTES — Dr. Eleanor Hartley LOCATION: The Garden of Remembered Names, The Field of Letters The Garden is a residential quarter built around a walled garden in the style of the Ladies of Llangollen — Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, who from 1780 to 1829 maintained a life of shared intellectual companionship in a cottage called Plas Newydd in Llangollen, Wales. They read Rousseau and Marie de Sévigné in the original French. They taught themselves Italian and Spanish to read Dante and Cervantes. They entertained thirty visitors in a single day. Wordsworth wrote them a sonnet. The Duke of Wellington visited regularly. They were called "the two most celebrated virgins in Europe" by a Prussian prince, a description that says more about the prince than about them. Their principle — that a home built for companionship rather than display is the most radical architecture — informs the Garden entirely. The cottages are honey stone covered in climbing roses, wisteria, and jasmine. Each...
From the lore of Cité des Dames.