7/10/2012

British Kumari



from The Baby's Day Book by W. Graham Robertson (1908)

WGR's literary executor Kerrison Preston wrote that WGR "acquired a reputation as a lover of children, with many little girls as friends in the manner of Lewis Carroll". The phrase was written in 1953 and innocent enough at that time. 

I am under the impression, admittedly without any substantial proof, that WGR was doing a sort of British version of "Kumari worship" by idealising Binkie (his deceased friend's daughter) as "The Woman", and writing many ritualistic plays of elemental nature for the baby-child. A similar attitude can be seen in some of the works of his friend Algernon Blackwood, notably in The Education of Uncle Paul. 



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