Married for only three years, Julia was devastated by her husband's death, lying on his grave at his family home of Orchardleigh, near Frome, Somerset.
She stated that she was no longer "inclined to optimism", but rather taking on a "melancholy view of life", indeed, to her "life seemed a shipwreck...The world was clothed in drab shrouded in a crape-veil", but kept herself going for the sake of her children.
She related this to Leslie Stephen later "I was only 24 when it all seemed a shipwreck, and I knew that I had to live on and on ... And so I got deadened".
At the same time, her grief imbued her with a sense of stoicism and awareness of suffering and she made a decision to reject religion, and it appeared, the possibility of happiness.
Leslie Stephen observed that "a cloud rested even upon her maternal affections ...it seemed to me at the time that she had accepted sorrow as her lifelong partner", and that "she was like a person reviving from drowning" and sometimes felt as if "she must let herself sink".

It was then that she took up nursing the sick and dying to make herself useful, and began studying the agnostic writing of Leslie Stephen.
As Leslie Stephen described it "She became a kind of sister of mercy.
Whenever there was trouble, death or illness in her family, the first thing was to send for Julia, whether to comfort survivors or to nurse the patients".
After her husband's death, she joined her parents who had moved to Freshwater, Isle of Wight.
It was also a period when she spent extensive visits to her aunt, Julia Margaret Cameron's home in Freshwater, who took many photographs of her (see Gallery II).
She also resisted her aunt's efforts to persuade her to remarry.
Married for only three years, Julia was devastated by her husband's death, lying on his grave at his family home of Orchardleigh, near Frome, Somerset. She stated that she was no longer "inclined to optimism", but rather taking on a "melancholy view of life", indeed, to her "life seemed a shipwreck...The world was clothed in drab shrouded in a crape-veil", but kept herself going for the sake of her children. She related this to Leslie Stephen later "I was only 24 when it all seemed a shipwreck, and I knew that I had to live on and on ... And so I got deadened". At the same time, her grief imbued her with a sense of stoicism and awareness of suffering and she made a decision to reject religion, and it appeared, the possibility of happiness. Leslie Stephen observed that "a cloud rested even upon her maternal affections ...it seemed to me at the time that she had accepted sorrow as her lifelong partner", and that "she was like a person reviving from drowning" and sometimes felt as if "she must let herself sink".
It was then that she took up nursing the sick and dying to make herself useful, and began studying the agnostic writing of Leslie Stephen. As Leslie Stephen described it "She became a kind of sister of mercy. Whenever there was trouble, death or illness in her family, the first thing was to send for Julia, whether to comfort survivors or to nurse the patients". After her husband's death, she joined her parents who had moved to Freshwater, Isle of Wight. It was also a period when she spent extensive visits to her aunt, Julia Margaret Cameron's home in Freshwater, who took many photographs of her (see Gallery II). She also resisted her aunt's efforts to persuade her to remarry.
Julia Stephen