Tea was served in the drawing-room, "its oriel window full of green and golden lights, of the sounds of birds and of the distant sea." The air of extreme and unstudied simplicity, which dominated the whole Farringford household, was just as noticeable here. Tea was a happy gathering of the family and friends, enlivened with talk on current topics. The Laureate's sympathies were wide-reaching, and his conversation, forcible and often racy, was characterised by the strongest common-sense. He held firmly-defined views on all social subjects; and had declared himself on the question of "Woman's Rights"--then comparatively fresh--at considerable length in _The Princess_. "The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink Together, dwarf'd or god-like, bond or free. ... For woman is not undevelopt man, But diverse: could we make her as the man, Sweet Love were slain: his dearest bond is this, Not like to like, but like in difference. Yet in the long years liker must they grow; The man be more of woman, she of man; He gain in sweetness and in moral height, Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind; Till at last she set herself to man, Like perfect music unto noble words; And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers. ... Let this proud watchword rest Of equal; seeing either sex alone Is half itself, and in the marriage ties Nor equal, nor unequal; each fulfils Defect in each, and always thought in thought, Purpose in purpose, will in will they grow, The single pure and perfect animal, The two-cell'd heart beating with one full stroke Life." _The Princess._ The poet's ideal of woman was set very high: he held her to be far above man, morally and spiritually: and an ideal as perfect as may well be conceived was daily before his eyes, in the person of his beautiful wife, with her pure and saintly face: who was yet "No angel, but a dearer being, all dipt In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise, Interpreter between the gods and men, Who looked all native to her place, and yet On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved, And girdled her with music." _The Princess._