In 1880, he adopted the two daughters of his friend, Germano Meireles, who had died in 1877. During a trip to Paris, de Quental became seriously ill, and in September 1881, under counsel from his medic, de Quental began residing in Vila do Conde, where he remained until May 1891 (with a few intervals in the Azores and Lisbon). He regarded his time in Vila do Conde as the best of his life. To Carolina Michaelis de Vasconcelos, a friend, he wrote of his need to end his poetry and begin a philosophical phase in his writing, to develop and synthesize his philosophy. He commented that