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[[marginalia]] Did you receive your apples, spread, brassiere? [[/marginalia]]

Arlington, Va.
20 Oct 1946.

Dear Doris:
    
You must have had an exciting weekend even if you didn't go to Stoughton. Where did your Mr. Sharp take you? What time did you get in? and tell us all about it. You sound as if you were beginning to enjoy life there with the girls aside from the studying. As for your compositions I fancy you are going thru a stage of awkwardness because you are so self conscious. That is a great pity and it was on that very account that I was so anxious for you to write daily in your diary. But that will go as soon as you are a little farther along. Just think only of getting what you want to say across to the other fellow, not always "What is he thinking of me." This ability to transcend yourself is really the whole story in living,- to forget yourself as a great blundering awkward person and use yourself only as a sounding board, a sensitive instrument to perceive the beauty and interest of the world. It is the epitome of human relations too. Take Russia as as supreme example,- the statesmen of that country are so darned self conscious of their own selves that they can't or won't try to understand the rest of the world. So don't let yourself as a person get in the way of your writing.
   
We were going to take Miss Colcord & Atwood up to Harper's Ferry this afternoon but it is a northeast drizzle. Miss Colcord is disappointed so we are planning a little drive about with them, probably up towards Great Falls.
  
Yesterday we took that coat out to Dolores' house. Only her brother was home. Dolores had gone to a football game, good for her! We stopped at Allard's on the way back. Someone had dropped a small Siamese kitten at their place and he had it in a cage in the