In our mother's house of life, each child had its special room, though no door was locked to any. In all things pertaining to philosophy, Julia was her special intimate. For help and sympathy in suffrage and club doings, she turned naturally to Florence, an ardent worker in these fields; with Harry she would specially enjoy music; with Laura would talk of books; while Maud was the "Prime Minister" in social and household matters. So, till the very last, we gray-haired children leaned on her, clung to her, as in the days when we were children indeed. A few years before Julia's death, our mother wrote to Mrs. Cheney, who had lost her only daughter: "This combat of the soul with deadly sorrow is a single-handed one, so far as human help is concerned. I do believe that God's sweet angels are with us when we contend against the extreme of calamity." Heavy as this affliction was, it brought none of the paralysis of grief caused by Sammy's death: rather, as after the passing of the Chevalier, she was urged by the thought of her dead child to more and higher efforts. In the quiet of Oak Glen she wrote this summer a careful study of Dante and Beatrice, for the Concord School of Philosophy.[99] July 20 found her at Concord, where she and Julia had been wont to go together. She says, "I cannot think of the sittings of the School without a vision of the rapt expression of her face as she sat and listened to the various speakers."[100] [99] This was a summer school of ten years (1879-88) in which Emerson, Alcott, and W. T. Harris took part. [100] _Reminiscences_, p. 440. Spite of her grief in missing this sweet companionship she found the sessions of the School deeply interesting. She was "much more nervous than usual" about her lecture; which "really sounded a good deal better than it had looked to me. It was wonderfully well received." We are told by the last living representative of the School of Philosophy, Mr. F. B. Sanborn, that she was the most attractive, and sometimes the most profound, of its lecturers; "had the largest audiences, and gave the most pleasure; especially when she joined delicate personal criticism or epigrammatic wit with high philosophy." The meetings of the School were always a delight to her; the papers written for it were among her most valuable essays; indeed, we may look upon them as the flowering of all her deep and painful toil in the field of philosophy.[101] [101] These essays were published in a volume entitled _Is Polite Society Polite?_ September finds her planning an "industrial circle" in each State; a woman's industrial convention hereafter; and attending a Suffrage Convention at Providence. "Spoke of the divine right, not of kings or people, but of righteousness. Spoke of Ouida's article in the 'North American Review.' It had been reported that I declined to answer it. I said: 'You cannot mend a stocking which is _all_ holes. If you hold it up it will fall to pieces of itself.'