The beauty and splendour of the
Princess's university have not arisen in light and colour, and it is
only at St Andrews that girls wear the academic and becoming costume
of the scarlet gown. The real is far below the ideal, but the real
in 1847 seemed eminently remote, or even impossible.
The learned Princess herself was not on our level as to knowledge and
the past of womankind. She knew not of their masterly position in
the law of ancient Egypt. Gynaeocracy and matriarchy, the woman the
head of the savage or prehistoric group, were things hidden from her.
She "glanced at the Lycian custom," but not at the Pictish, a custom
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.
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