This is a heavy social week for all the postponed parties are coming together! So I record for the day a very delightful luncheon with Mrs. Joseph T. Byrns, whose husband is Speaker of the House; two teas held from four to five and five to six, of about seven hundred people, and a small, informal dinner tonight!

I have just finished an interesting book, still in manuscript, by the same woman, Mary Rak, who wrote the "Cow Puncher's Wife." You will enjoy it, if for no other reason that that it makes you appreciate how leisurely your own life is to read of the activities of this versatile and capable cowman's wife!

The contrariness of human nature is becoming more apparent every day. When we make mistakes ourselves we hate to have other people notice them, but when the boot is on the other foot, we leave nothing unnoticed. The youngest child acts this way, and the greatest statesmen. It was brought home to me when one of my guests at breakfast this morning said: "I used to think the Democrats always made the best speeches, but now the Republicans seem to have much better speakers." Suddenly both of us laughed for we realized that the truth of the matter was that those who attack always do so with greater fervor than those who defend. The art of speaking with conviction and interest seems to me on the "Elephant's" side just now instead of with the "Donkey" as it was for so many years before 1933!

One of my correspondents starts a verse which he send me with somewhat the same idea. Mr. Emory W. Justice tells me he has a book called "Life's Golden Dreams," which is at present in its second edition and he is moved by "My Day" to write the following lines:

"Having something to conquer, some one has said

Is a slogan for the living, not for the dead"

Yes, surely those who are trying to conquer are more lively-they have to be!