Editing Emily Dickinson (section)

=== Later life ===
On June 16, 1874, while in Boston, Edward Dickinson suffered a stroke and died. When the simple funeral was held in the Homestead's entrance hall, Dickinson stayed in her room with the door cracked open; she didn't attend the memorial service on June 28.<ref>Habegger (2001), 562.</ref> She wrote to Higginson that her father's "Heart was pure and terrible and I think no other like it exists."<ref>Habegger (2001), 566.</ref> A year later, on June 15, 1875, Dickinson's mother also suffered a stroke, which produced a partial lateral [[paralysis]] and impaired memory. Lamenting her mother's increasing physical as well as mental demands, Dickinson wrote that "Home is so far from Home".<ref>Habegger (2001), 569.</ref>

{{quote box|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|width=35%|fontsize = 80% |quote=
<poem>
Though the great Waters sleep,
That they are still the Deep,
We cannot doubt&nbsp;–
No vacillating God
Ignited this Abode
To put it out&nbsp;–
</poem>|salign = right|source= <small>Emily Dickinson, c. 1884<ref>Johnson (1960), 661.</ref></small>}}
[[Otis Phillips Lord]], an elderly judge on the [[Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court]] from [[Salem, Massachusetts|Salem]], in 1872 or 1873 became an acquaintance of Dickinson's. After the death of Lord's wife in 1877, his friendship with Dickinson probably became a late-life romance, though as their letters were destroyed, this is surmised.<ref>Habegger (2001:&nbsp;587); Sewall (1974), 642.</ref> Dickinson found a kindred soul in Lord, especially in terms of shared literary interests; the few letters that survived contain multiple quotations of [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]]'s work, including the plays ''[[Othello]]'', ''[[Antony and Cleopatra]]'', ''[[Hamlet]]'' and ''[[King Lear]]''. In 1880 he gave her [[Mary Cowden Clarke]]'s ''Complete Concordance to Shakespeare'' (1877).<ref>Sewall (1974), 651.</ref> Dickinson wrote, "While others go to Church, I go to mine, for are you not my Church, and have we not a Hymn that no one knows but us?"<ref>Sewall (1974), 652.</ref> She referred to him as "My lovely Salem"<ref>Habegger (2001), 592; Sewall (1974), 653.</ref> and they wrote to each other religiously every Sunday. Dickinson looked forward to this day greatly; a surviving fragment of a letter written by her states that "Tuesday is a deeply depressed Day".<ref>Habegger (2001), 591.</ref>

After being critically ill for several years, Judge Lord died in March 1884. Dickinson referred to him as "our latest Lost".<ref>Habegger (2001), 597.</ref> Two years before this, on April 1, 1882, Dickinson's "Shepherd from 'Little Girl'hood", Charles Wadsworth, also had died after a long illness.