The end of the nineteenth century was, inevitably, a time for both taking stock and trying to look forward. For some, particularly in the younger generation, it brought the exhilaration of freedom from old orthodoxies. While older generations had more regrets over the loss of settled authority, they too sensed the possibility of re-definition in the aftermath of a heroic age of dominant personalities in politics, religion and literature. In this freer climate the antagonism between science and religion became less acute, while agnosticism was more pervasive and less guilt-ridden. In politics, Gladstone's adoption of Home Rule broke up old party loyalties, while concern about social disintegration was met with a new emphasis on the importance of family and community and more diverse approaches towards tackling the problems of the poor. In literature, new and distinctive voices emerged, ranging from Oscar Wilde to H. G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson to Walter Pater, Algernon Swinburne to Thomas Hardy. The fluidity was equally evident in religion, where, as José Harris has suggested, a ‘disorderly pluralism’ prevailed. Julia observed the same phenomenon: ‘ideas and aspirations which we have hitherto recognized under the name of Christianity are taking up new aspects and appearing in unexpected quarters’. Alongside the traditional forms of faith, Theosophy, Transcendentalism, Eastern mysticism and other ‘varieties of religious experience’ attracted new adherents, while interest in Spiritualism revived. With old doctrinal certainties weakening and Darwinism losing some of its assurance, the 1890s were, Julia believed, a time when people had to think for themselves.

Politically, she moved to the right after the Home Rule split. Dicey's critique of the destabilizing effects of the establishment of a separate Parliament in Dublin impressed her. In 1890 she published what can only be described as a reactionary article in Murray's Magazine, warning of the dangers of majoritarian democracy. Home Rule, she claimed, would legitimize the Irish Land League that had ‘martyred’ the law-abiding Irish minority.

For all her nostalgia over what had been lost, however, she welcomed the new challenges in her own stock-take of the nineteenth century, ‘The Old Order Changeth’ published in 1897 in the Contemporary Review.