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Late 1870s. Photographer unknown. Not in Saunders. Courtesy Sheffield
[England] Library, Edward Carpenter Collection. With Harry Stafford.
Whitman often stayed with the
Stafford family at their farm in New Jersey where he
spent
restorative time by Timber Creek, regaining his health.
In
1876 Whitman entered an intense and stormy relationship with
young
Harry, who often accompanied Whitman to the creek and to
whom Whitman
gave a ring; the ring is visible in this photo on
Harry's right
hand. The ring was taken back and re-given over the
next
couple of years, and clearly was thought of as a symbol
of deep
commitment; Harry wrote to Whitman about wanting the ring
back in
1877 "to compleete [sic] our friendship": "You know
when you
put it on there was but one thing to part it from me
and that
was death." During these years, when they were apart,
Whitman wrote
Harry intimate letters: "Dear Harry, not a day or night
passes
but I think of you. . . . Dear son, how I wish you
could come
in now, even if but for an hour & take off your coat, &
sit on
my lap--" By 1881, Whitman credited Harry with having saved
his
life: "Dear Hank, I realize plainly that if I had not
known
you --if it hadn't been for you & our friendship . . .
I
believe I should not be a living man to-day --"
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