Quite a while now since I have seen or heard of any of you—How are you all—George2 & Ed3 & Harry4 & all?—I am here coop:d up just as closely & helpless as ever—don't get my health or strength an atom more—Sit up most of the time days here in the great arm chair with the old wolf-skin spread back—trying to pass away the time (& succeeding after a fashion) but some days very low indeed.
—Love to you all— Walt Whitman loc_jc.00406_large.jpgCorrespondent:
Susan M. Lamb Stafford
(1833–1910) was the mother of Harry Stafford (1858–1918), who, in
1876, became a close friend of Whitman while working at the printing office of
the Camden New Republic. Whitman regularly visited the
Staffords at their family farm near Kirkwood, New Jersey. Whitman enjoyed the
atmosphere and tranquility that the farm provided and would often stay for weeks
at a time (see David G. Miller, "Stafford, George and Susan M.," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings [New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998], 685).