am ever your rose. "Romantic" relationship with Ruskin Although much speculation exists over when Ruskin "fell in love" with Rose, most critics maintain that she was between the ages of 14–18. The author George MacDonald was entrusted by her parents to oversee Rose's welfare during their absence, and he served as a go-between for Ruskin and Rose, acting as their closest friend and advisor. Rose's parents refused permission for Ruskin to marry their daughter after being warned about him by Ruskin's first wife, Effie Gray, whose 6-year marriage to Ruskin had ended in annulment due to "non-consummation". Ruskin repeated his marriage proposal after Rose became legally free to decide for herself, but she still refused. She was willing to marry if the union would remain unconsummated, as was Ruskin's first marriage, because her doctors had told her she was unfit for marriage; but Ruskin declined to enter another such marriage for fear of its effect on his reputation. Death Rose died on the 25th of May in 1875 at the age of 27, in a Dublin nursing home, where she had been placed by her parents. Various authors describe the death as arising from either madness, anorexia, a broken heart, religious mania or hysteria, or a combination of these. Whatever the cause, her death was tragic and it is generally credited with causing the onset of bouts of insanity in Ruskin from around 1877. He convinced himself that the Renaissance painter Vittore Carpaccio had included portraits of Rose in his paintings of the life of Saint Ursula. He also took solace in Spiritualism, trying to contact Rose's spirit. Rose and Ruskin's romance is alluded to in his small tract on education and culture, Sesame and Lilies. According to Wolfgang Kemp "the whole work is riddled with allusions and direct references to the la Touches". References Further reading Burd, Van Akin (Ed.) John Ruskin and Rose La Touche: Her Unpublished Diaries of 1861 and 1867 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1980). "The Portraits of Rose la Touche", James S. Dearden, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 120, No. 899 (Feb. 1978), pp. 92–96 Kemp, Wolfgang. The Desire of My Eyes: The Life and Work of John Ruskin (London, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990). Hilton, Tim. John Ruskin: The Later Years (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2000). Zoë Bennett, "Ruskin, the Bible, and the Death of Rose La Touche," in Michael Lieb, Emma Mason and