A Letter to Liu Songlin [I]
(August 6, 1959)

Wawa:

Are you feeling a bit better? Has your younger sister taken the school examination? I am still all right, somewhat better than when I was in Beijing. I climb high and view the vastness between heaven and earth; the great river, boundless, flows away never to return. Yellow clouds for ten thousand miles stir the look of the wind; white waves in nine channels flow past snowy mountains. These are a few lines of verse by Li Bai. When you feel melancholy, you may read some classical literature, which can serve to dispel sorrow and break through depression. Not having seen you for a long time, I think of you very much.

Papa
August 6

[I] Liu Songlin, married Mao Zedong's son Mao Anying in October 1949. At that time she was studying in the Russian Language and Literature Department of Peking University.