which would have suited George Sand to a marvel. She maligned the
Hottentots.


"The highest is the measure of the man,
And not the Kaffir, Hottentot, Malay."


The Hottentots had long ago anticipated the Princess and her shrill
modern sisterhood. If we take the Greeks, or even ourselves, we may
say, with Dampier (1689), "The Hodmadods, though a nasty people, yet
are gentlemen to these" as regards the position of women. Let us
hear Mr Hartland: "In every Hottentot's house the wife is supreme.
Her husband, poor fellow, though he may wield wide power and
influence out of doors, at home dare not even take a mouthful of
sour-milk out of the household vat without her permission . . . The
highest oath a man can take is to swear by his eldest sister, and if
he abuses this name he forfeits to her his finest goods and sheep."

However, in 1847 England had not yet thought of imitating the
Hodmadods. Consequently, and by reason of the purely literary and
elaborately fantastical character of The Princess, it was not of a
nature to increase the poet's fame and success. "My book is out, and
I hate it, and so no doubt will you," Tennyson wrote to FitzGerald,
who hated it and said so. "Like Carlyle, I gave up all hopes of him
after The Princess," indeed it was not apt to conciliate Carlyle.
"None of the songs had the old champagne flavour," said Fitz; and
Lord Tennyson adds, "Nothing either by Thackeray or by my father met
FitzGerald's approbation unless he had first seen it in manuscript."
This prejudice was very human. Lord Tennyson remarks, as to the