Dear Enemy
1915
When Sallie McBride, spirited, self-doubting, and utterly unqualified, becomes superintendent of a grim orphan asylum, she brings exactly what those children need: stubborn optimism, sharp humor, and a refusal to accept that poverty is an excuse for cruelty. The John Grier Home is cold in every sense, but Sallie sets fire to its sterile corridors with Christmas trees, poetry readings, and the kind of radical kindness that scandalizes the board of directors. Her weapon is the epistolary arrow: letters to her friend Judy about the daily disasters, to the orphanage's doctor (her self-proclaimed "Dear Enemy") about the children who break through his gruff exterior, and to a congressman who represents everything she should want. What emerges is a woman discovering she is braver than she believed, finding purpose in an unlikely place, and learning that love often arrives wearing the face of someone you initially despised. The novel crackles with early twentieth-century feminism, Sallie refuses to be ornamental, insists on meaningful work, and negotiates her own terms with the world.
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“The more I study men, the more I realize that they are nothing in the world but boys grown too big to be spankable.””
— Jean Webster
“Good manners are not merely snobbish ornaments, as Mrs. Lippett's regime appeared to believe. They mean self-discipline and thought for others, and my children have got to learn them.””
— Jean Webster
“Aren't men funny? When they want to pay you the greatest compliment in their power, they naively tell you that you have a masculine mind. There is one compliment, incidentally, that I shall never be paying him. I cannot honestly say that he has a quickness of perception almost feminine.””
— Jean Webster
“The awful thing about a vacation is that the moment it begins your happiness is already clouded by its approaching end.””
— Jean Webster
“I stood alone in the winter twilight, and I took a deep breath of clear cold air, and I felt beautifully, wonderfully, electrically free””
— Jean Webster
“We all have a collection of memories that we would happily lose, but somehow those are just the ones that insist upon sticking.””
— Jean Webster
“The Lord has given you two hands and a brain and a big world to use them in. Use them well, and you will be provided for; use them ill, and you will want,””
— Jean Webster
“It's nice to look forward to, isn't it”
— Jean Webster
“You remember that illuminated text over the dining-room door--"The Lord Will Provide." We've painted it out, and covered the spot with rabbits. It's all very well to teach so easy a belief to normal children, who have a proper family and roof behind them; but a person whose only refuge in distress will be a park bench must learn a more militant creed than that.””
— Jean Webster
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Webster, Jean. Dear Enemy. Lex, lex-books.com/book/dear-enemy-95a350e1-c661-4ded-8204-0bc844866818.Webster, J. (1915). Dear Enemy. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/dear-enemy-95a350e1-c661-4ded-8204-0bc844866818Webster, Jean. Dear Enemy. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/dear-enemy-95a350e1-c661-4ded-8204-0bc844866818.
