Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix

"The question has very naturally been raised why heretofore no attempt should have been made at an adequate biography of Dorothea Lynde Dix; in fact, why--except for a few brief accounts of her career, printed in magazines, read before private clubs, or inserted in encyclopedias--no real information is to be had about her. Here is a woman who, as the founder of vast and enduring institutions of mercy in America and in Europe, has simply no peer in the annals of Protestantism. To find her parallel in this respect, it is necessary to go back to the lives of such memorable Roman Catholic women as St. Theresa of Spain or Santa Chiara of Assisi, and to the amazing work they did in founding throughout European Christendom great conventual establishments. Why, then, do the majority of the present generation know little or nothing of so remarkable a story? It was from no lack of pressure on the part of admirers and venerators of the character and work of so exceptional a woman that this came about. The invincible obstacle lay in her own positive refusal to permit anything to be written of her. Two equally strong, but totally contrasted, natures lay in her: the one the outcome of a sensitive, suffering temperament, instinctively seeking to shield itself from gall or wound; the other born of the fortitude of a martyr in fronting danger, loneliness, and obloquy, in championing the cause of the friendless and "ready to perish." To all this must be added a depth of self-abnegating religious faith which made her life one long struggle to prostrate a spirit naturally proud and imperious at the footstool of God, in the lowly cry, 'Not unto me, not unto me, but unto Thy Name be the praise!'"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).