Although Ashby-Sterry loved girls of various ages, he clearly stated his preference for 16-year-old ones, while he often called younger ones ‘pet.’ This shows that he did not love them in the same manner as older ones, and in some way he considered them as inferior beings. Sometimes, he presented them as little animals. For instance one poem in the collection Boudoir Ballads is titled “Little Chinchilla” (with subtitle “A Symphony in Fur”), and on first reading one wonders whether it is about a girl or a little furry animal; now, a poem in his other collection The Lazy Minstrel, titled “January,” confirms that he writes about a girl: one reads “A merry maiden” and “To Miss Chinchilla you confide, / How proud you are to be her guide.” Another poem in the latter collection, “The Kitten,” explicitly compares a 10-year-old girl to a kitten. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…