hi Mark -- this looks like a lot of fun, thanks for posting.
I'm going to preference the Placidus chart shown, as I don't believe sign-as-house systems were used in the past in the same way we use and adapt houses today.
I have to agree with what most everyone has said -- the Sun/Mars conjunction in opposition to Saturn is the most striking feature of this chart. here we have three masculine planets in masculine signs, with quite forcible aspects involved (the conjunction and opposition). knowing that she's a female, it does seem to me that this planetary backdrop would encourage the native to grow into a vocal opponent of public opinion/policy regarding something very close to the native's heart. I'm not entirely sure what that is, though I'm tempted to connect it back to the 5th and 8th houses somehow. this is because it's the Sun and Mars 'teaming up', as it were, against a retrograde Saturn in the 8th, Saturn ruling the 5th. retrograde Saturn.. hm, perhaps an opponent of a regressive stance on something concerning 5th house affairs? others have mentioned children or creativity, I think the angle on children might make the most sense (and when the 8th house is joined with the 5th, we might have to connect images of life and death of children and one's issue). but perhaps this is actually about censorship and not about children at all (trying to weave in the 'creativity' theme instead, but not sure how to without understand the context of the time in which this native lived).
I'd agree with the others that it looks like her weapon was very likely her pen. Virgo rising, Moon in trine to Mercury, Mercury and Venus conjunct with Venus in the 3rd, Mercury ruling the 10th. but I have to imagine there was a fair deal of trouble here. South Node in the 10th, the Sun and Mars opposing Saturn from signs of debility, Mars ruling the 3rd and 8th bringing together significations of writing and loss/difficulty, the dispositor of Sun/Mars being Venus in the 3rd in sign of fall. Venus rules the 9th so wonder if she had tremendous legal opposition. the oppositions here though are all mutually received (Sun/Mars receiving Saturn by sign, Saturn the Sun/Mars by exaltation), so while I imagine her life was very tumultuous, she wouldn't have wanted to give up 'the fight', and she would've accepted her lot of difficulty with modest finish lines of success.
Sun and Mars in the 2nd, both debilitated, 2nd-ruler cadent and in fall -- I imagine she had significant financial pressures, or tended to squander whatever money she had. Pisces on 7th cusp with 7th-ruler retrograde, and Moon in Pisces -- perhaps she married more than once, or divorced and did not re-marry. wondering if there's something with an inheritance of a husband's, as 7th-ruler is in the 8th, 8th-ruler in the 2nd.
Virgo rising with Mercury in Scorpio -- simple, plain, small features, though dark. Mercury in conjunction with Venus in Scorpio: likely someone who adopted style trends of the time, though they somehow didn't suit her (perhaps she didn't put enough effort into it to avoid looking a bit disheveled -- but if I'm right about even a little of the above, she had bigger fish to fry than hair and dress).
wondering if she had children herself. looks like there was significant difficulty there if she had, or perhaps lost a child due to Saturn's retrogradation in the 8th, in opposition to 8th-ruler.
I saw another say she was born in the Victorian era and thinking I might've let that influence how I interpreted the chart to come up with a lot of the above. got to give credit where it's due. that said, if this person wasn't born in a country where Victorian lifestyle would've had much effect... who knows!
Mark