[From a paraphilia research blog]

Victorian writer and art critic, described by Tolstoy as “one of the most remarkable men not only of England and of our generation, but of all countries and times.” Ruskin’s one marriage fell apart after he saw his wife’s nude body, which disgusted him. He met nine-year-old Rose La Touche in 1858, became her tutor, and soon thereafter fell in love. His autobiography suggests that he fell in love by 1860 at the latest, when Rose would have been about eleven (Ruskin, 2012, p. 364; note this passage was omitted from the original publication):

And in the year 1860 the ‘new epoch of life,’ above spoken of, began for me in this wise, that my father and mother could travel with me no more, but Rose, in heart, was with me always, and all I did was for her sake. […] I recollect an American–not friend, but the intimate companion–asking me who Rosie-Posie was,–the words sometimes being said aloud unconsciously. Then in 1860, I could not bear being so far away from her […]

When Rose moved away in 1862, he wrote: “They took the child away from me — . . . and since that day of April 1862, I have never had one happy hour, — all my work has been wrecked — all my usefulness taken from me . . .” (Hilton, 2002, p. 321). He would carry letters from Rose in his breast pocket, the first of which was sent when she was thirteen (Hilton, 2002, p. 312). He also reprinted this first letter in his autobiography, alongside an account of their meeting (Ruskin, 1907):

So presently the drawing-room door opened, and Rosie came in, quietly taking stock of me with her blue eyes as she walked across the room; gave me her hand, as a good dog gives its paw, and then stood a little back. Nine years old, on 3rd January, 1858, thus now rising towards ten ; neither tall nor short for her age; a little stiff in her way of standing. The eyes rather deep blue at that time, and fuller and softer than afterwards. Lips perfectly lovely in profile ; — a little too wide, and hard in edge, seen in front ; the rest of the features what a fair, well-bred Irish girl’s usually are; the hair, perhaps, more graceful in short curl round the forehead, and softer than one sees often, in the close-bound tresses above the neck. […]
Some wise, and prettily mannered, people have told me I shouldn’t say anything about Rosie at all. But I am too old now to take advice, and I won’t have this following letter — the first she ever wrote me — moulder away, when I can read it no more, lost to all loving hearts.

He waited until Rose was around 18 before proposing to her (and was eventually rejected).

Ruskin’s preference was for girls 10 to 16: (Burd, 2007):

But I like my girls from ten to sixteen–allowing of 17 or 18 as long as they’re not in love with anybody but me.–I’ve got some darlings of 8–12–14–just now, and my pigwiggina here–12–who fetches my wood and is learning to play my bells.

In a letter to illustrator Kate Greenaway, Ruskin playfully requested nude drawings of little girls (Engen, 1981, p. 94):

Will you – (it’s all for your own good – !) make her stand up and then draw her for me without a cap – and, without her shoes, – (because of the heels) and without her mittens, and without her – frock and frills? And let me see exactly how tall she is – and – how – round. It will be so good of and for you – And to and for me.

In Italy, 46-year-old Ruskin was moved by the sight of a half-naked ten-year-old girl (Hilton, 2002, p. 253):

One of the finest things I saw at Turin was a group of neglected children at play on a heap of sand — one girl of about ten, with her black hair over her eyes and half naked, bare-limbed to above the knees, and beautifully limbed, lying on the sand like a snake . . .

The image affected him so much that he would still mention it in diaries and lectures decades later. Another somewhat erotic description of the event appears in his The Cestus of Aglaia (Ruskin, 1911, p. 145):

[…] the image of an Italian child, lying, she also, upon a hill of sand, by Eridanus’ side; a vision which has never quite left me since I saw it. A girl of ten or twelve, it might be […] She was lying with her arms thrown back over her head, all languid and lax, on an earth-heap by the river-side, (the softness of the dust being the only softness she had ever known), in the southern suburb of Turin, one golden afternoon in August, years ago. […] The sand was mixed with the draggled locks of her black hair, and some of it sprinkled over her face and body, in an “ashes to ashes” kind of way; a few black rags about her loins, but her limbs nearly bare, and her little breasts, scarce dimpled yet, white, marble-like but, as wasted marble, thin with the scorching and the rains of Time.




• ( https link ) ADVENTURES OF DANIEL RUMANOS
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