ABSTRACT
A buoyant Dell was popular with her teachers and a few of her class-mates at Albany – fondly remembered by fellow students for her humorous antics, sometimes self-deprecating. She was a serious student whose literary talent soon became evident, and with her natural confidence, flair for leadership, and exceptional scholastic record, she was usually the speaker for the class. A perceptive Lucretia Chilcott reminisced:
In one respect she was peculiar, if not somewhat contradictory. Although of world-wide sympathies and genuinely democratic, she was exceedingly choice of the selection of her intimate friends. No human being was too insignificant or too humble for whom she would not make any reasonable self-sacrifice; but she positively would not permit herself to be bored by the companionship of mediocre or commonplace individuals. As a consequence she was very much alone in early life; and not at all popular with persons of either sex. However she was very fond of taking part in social gatherings. She was a brilliant conversationalist, an appreciative listener, a person of exquisite manners, and possessed a strong sense of humor. Also she was deeply averse to anything that partook of the nature of a practical joke – to anything that made a
human being seem ridiculous. . . . To her, human dignity, in its true sense, was a source of genuine pride; something to be cherished and maintained – something sacred.1
