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Feb. 13, 1948

Dear folks,

I hope your cold is better, Mother. Jean & I (who are almost over our colds) have at least a warm bedroom. It is awful to have fevers & chills in a chilly room.

So Mr. Allard is back! Is he brown? Poor Mrs. A, her happy spinster days are over.

Mr. Richards (got switch) is enjoying himself with a large & certain type class: many of the witty set -- not a derogatory sense [[strikethrough]] wh [[/strikethrough]] and, thermometer that he is, he registers wittier & wittier. He gave us a "test", experiment: to [[strikethrough]] sav [[/strikethrough]] answer this: ["Conduct of language". What do [[strikethrough]]es th [[/strikethrough]] you understand by this? What do you think will be its subjects in this course?] and showed us how 1) our replies to 1st question tended to be influenced decisively by the 2nd question, by what he had just been saying in class & 2) how many "conducts" answers revealed: the philosophical, metaphysical answer (He read in frenzied tones: "How can I answer this? It has too many associations & implications!), the literary answer, the (commonest) [[strikethrough]] social relations [[/strikethrough]] sociological answer (using conduct as "behavior"), the scientific answer ("A methodized means of transfering emotions, thoughts, actions by the use of verbalized noises") Very funny. But [[strikethrough]] this [[/strikethrough]] he won't be always so simple : will proceed to valuable & instructive work after this "liesurely adjustment to methods."

On Wed. morning I got quite a series of shocks: met, separately thank gods: David,  (I in foolish, half-asleep moment promised to go to Leverett house dance with him, drat it!), Steve, Harry, Hank, and Dick.

Please either send my diaries or a very good reason why not.

Love,
Doris