Dear Enemy

Jean Webster

inmates
delectable = 正斗, 一流, 無得彈
imminent
gaieties
burlap
aghast at
stupendous
poor little tots
taciturnity
unbecoming coiffure
obnoxiously insistent
herculean
grumpy
waifs
barring = except for
altercation = noisy argument, esp. in public


I am exactly as well fitted to take care of one hundred children as to become the curator of a zoo.

I dash to pack them; so telegraph fast if you don't wish to see me for myself alone, but only as a successor to Mrs. Lippett.

They had never seen the like of Sing (a Chinese chows), and thought that I was introducing a wolf into the fold.

You were wise in not having me come to look the place over before I engaged.

"The Lord Will Provide"! The trustee who added that last touch must possess a grim sense of humor.

Horror piled on horror

I have already begun the congenial task of spending your money.

He's as companionable as a granite tombstone!

My dear Gordon: Are you still insulted because I wouldn't take your advice? Don't you know that a reddish-haired person of Irish forebears, with a dash of Scotch, can't be driven, but must be gently led? Had you been less obnoxiously insistent, I should have listened sweetly, and been saved.

I really was obnoxious that last evening, but you are avenged.

My dear Gordon: Your vigorous and expensive message is here. I know that you have plenty of money, but that is no reason why you should waste it so frivolously. When you feel so bursting with talk that only a hundred-word telegram will relieve an explosion, at least turn it into a night lettergram. My orphans can use the money if you don't need it.

I came up here in a spirit of---well, say adventure, and I must see the venture through.

And I will add, for your further comfort, that whereas there is no man in the neighborhood of this asylum who admires red hair, in Worcester there are several. Therefore, most difficult of men, please be appeased.

I didn't come entirely to spite you. I wanted an adventure in life, and, oh dear! oh dear! I'm having it! PLEASE write soon, and cheer me up.

Purple socks and a red tie, with an amethyst pin, completed the picture. Clearly, your paragon of a doctor is not going to be of much assistance in pulling up the esthetic tone of this establishment.

HE forsooth! And what, may I ask, are the duties of a superintendent? Is she merely a figurehead to take orders from the visiting physician?

... it seems impossible to reach you by telephone. Is the person who calls herself Mrs. McGurk and hangs up in the middle of a sentence your housekeeper? If she answers the telephone often, I don't see how your patients have any patience left.

... who talks through her nose and breathes through her mouth. She can't say anything decisively and then stop; her sentences all trail off into incoherent murmurings.

You see how I have taken to heart the unhappy experiences of that little Jerusha.

How I do not like that man! He is a pink, fat, puffy old thing, with a pink, fat, puffy soul.

I have been trying for a month to introduce one or two basic ideas into that child's brain, and now I know what the trouble is: her head is filled with a sort of soft cheesy substance instead of brain.

I do love presents for the babies that are too big to be swallowed.

But despite everything, we have a great deal of energy left, and we are getting to that point of nerves where we want to punch one another.

P.S. There is one thing in the midst of all my troubles that I have to be grateful for: the Hon. Cy has been stricken with a lingering attack of grippe. In a burst of thankfulness I sent him a bunch of violets.

Our trustee, who has had a dangerous illness, is now dangerously well again, ...

You know I'm not vindictive, but I never look at that man without wishing he were at the bottom of the duck pond, securely anchored to a rock.