[A. F. Shand [Alexander Faulkner Shand], pioneering psychologist.] Two Autograph Letters Signed to ‘Burdett'

Shand is great-grandfather of Queen Camilla. His best-known work is 'The Foundations of Character' (1914). ONE: 18 November 1907. 4pp, 16mo. Bifolium. Thirty-five lines. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded for postage. Shand - who is weakened by ‘fever & cough’, and ‘too tired to think consecutively’ - thanks Burdett for his ‘very kind letter which was a real consolation to me in my bed’. His ‘argument about avarice was most interesting, & I think I quite agree with it. Certainly “possession for its own sake” is the fixed intellectual principle of avarice, & the passion rides through its emotions like such a principle through clamorous impulses.’ Though he feels that ‘the best course’ is that when he is better Burdett ‘will dine here & have a talk’, he does not ‘want to force my own theories forward - talk about any thing’. Burdett’s ‘appreciation’ was ‘so nice, & to some people that does good because it encourages them to go on. To find the best you can do always contemned must be like the pain of so many poor women, despised because their hands & service alone express love, while their minds are formed on a plane so far below it.’ TWO: 16 February 1908. 3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. Twenty-six lines. In good condition, lightly-aged, but with closed tears at edges of both leaves along central fold for postage. Having read Burdett’s ‘paper on the last ten years of English literature’, he considers it ‘an excellent account. You have distinguished the different qualities of the writers so as to give the foreigner a clear idea of them’. Burdett’s style is not as undeveloped as he would expect in a young writer. ‘In the Johnsonian style I can truthfully say: it was natural without being vulgar, & distinguished without being inflated.’ He urges him to ‘go on’, ‘weighing most critically your powers so as not to make the mistake that most of us do, going off in wrong directions because we wish to be there & have been a little successful elsewhere’.