Nov. 13
My dear Miss Addams:--
Thank you so much for the "Spirit of Youth." It is always a happiness to read your books; an [honor] to receive one of them from you. "The Spirit of Youth," -- simpler of course than some [page 2] which you have written, -- appeals to me especially. There is a rare and lovely tenderness suffusing it, that goes to the heart. Your attitude reminds me of that of the later Shakespeare, brooding over his Miranda and Perdita. But alas! poor modern youth, dwelling in no [fairy] isle but in the city streets, and [page 3] filling its lap with no sweet rosary of flowers! I rebuke myself, but I grow heavy of heart as the years pass on. "Save the children," was our cry when the settlements started twenty years ago. Those children are men & women now, -- fathers & mothers, and still we raise the same cry and the hold the new generation [page 4] under the same stupid and criminal conditions as the old. How long, O Lord, how long? You who live at the [Center] are often the one to inspirit and cheer us poor futile spectators. Not that I'm really discouraged, you know: and I see the signs of hope.
Lovingly and gratefully
Vida D. Scudder
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