“ She writes herself down a journalist, although her inclinations have always been towards purely literary work, and she has accomplished enough to justify the name "author." Domestic cares have hindered her in her work, but the Quaker courage born in her has carried her over obstacles that seemed insurmountable. ”

“ Her father's ancestors were of the same religious faith as her mother's, and were among the Maryland pioneers. About 1750 the Dickinsons moved into southern Pennsylvania. Miss Dickinson's father was a wholesale and retail dry-goods merchant in Philadelphia, he died and left a family of five young children, who were carefully reared by the mother. They were educated in the select schools of the Society of Friends in Philadelphia, and in the Westtown boarding-school in Chester county. Susan, at the age of seventeen, became a teacher in the public schools of Philadelphia. ”