The title of Something More Tender Still (that’s why I love fall) refers to the article “"Something  More Tender Still than Friendship": Romantic Friendship in Early-Nineteenth-Century England” in the journal Feminist Studies written by Lisa Moore, which features a quote from a letter by historical lesbian diarist Anne Lister (1791-1840) to Marianne Lawton (1788-1868), a woman with whom she had sexual affairs. The letter exchange discusses whether the famous Ladies of Llangollen “had always been platonic,” Lister responds: 

“I cannot help thinking that surely it was not platonic. Heaven forgive me, but I look within myself and doubt. I feel the infirmity of our nature & hesitate to pronounce such attachments uncemented by something more tender still than friendship.”