Among the friends of the Burtons was the Princess of Thurn and Taxis, who with her husband became one of Letchford’s best patrons.  The princess won Sir Richard’s heart by her intelligence, her beauty and grace; and “his conversation was never so brilliant, and his witticisms were never so sparkling as in her presence.”  One day another princess—­a foolish, vain woman—­after making a number of insipid remarks, shook hands with Sir Richard, lifting high her arm and elbow in the fashion which was then just coming into vogue, but which has now lost acceptance.[FN#605] Sir Richard, while giving her his right hand, quietly with his left put down her arm and elbow.  The princess turned scarlet, but she never after practised “the high shake.”  Miss Letchford sums up Lady Burton as “a most beautiful and charming woman, with many lovely ideas, but many foolish ones.”  Unfortunately she was guided entirely by her confessor, a man of small mental calibre.  One of the confessor’s ideas was to convert Sir Richard by dropping small charms into his pockets.  Sir Richard got quite used to finding these little images about him; but they invariably made their way out of the window into the garden.  One of Lady Burton’s little failings was the fear lest anybody should come to the house in order to steal, and the servants had special commands to admit none who did not look “a perfect gentleman or lady,” with the result that one day they slammed the door in the face of the Archduke Louis Salvator, simply because he did not happen to have a card with him.  After that Lady Burton’s orders were less strict.

Mr. Letchford’s paintings include views of the neighbourhood, a portrait of Burton which was exhibited in the Stanley Gallery, and a full-length portrait of Burton fencing,[FN#606] but he is best known by his series of illustrations to The Arabian Nights.

164.  To Dr. Tuckey.

On April 24th we find Burton writing to thank Dr. Charles Tuckey for the gift of a copy of his Psycho-Therapeutics.  “An old pupil of Dr. Elliotson,"[FN#607] he says, “I am always interested in these researches, and welcome the appearance of any addition to our scanty knowledge of an illimitable field.  Suggestion (what a miserable name!) perfectly explains the stigmata of St. Francis and others without preter-natural assistance, and the curative effect of a dose of Koran (a verset written upon a scrap of paper, and given like a pill of p.q.).  I would note that the “Indian Prince"[FN#608] was no less a personage than Ranjit Singh, Rajah of the Punjab, that the burial of the Fakir was attested by his German surgeon-general, and that a friend and I followed Colonel Boileau’s example in personally investigating the subject of vivi-sepulture.  In p. 10:  The throngs of pilgrims to Mecca never think of curing anything but their ‘souls,’ and the pilgrimage is often fatal to their bodies.  I cannot but take exception to such terms as ‘psychology,’ holding