Charles de Kay to Walt Whitman, 16 December 1882
loc.01425.001_large.jpg
from Chas De Kay Dec: '82
The University Washington Sq
New York Dec' 16 Dear Walt Whitman
We have
been forming here a little club, or series of meetings, for authors and writers, and
it has seemed to several who have a good deal to do with the management of the club
that you, although only now & then in New York, ought to belong to it. I have no
sort of doubt that at the next meeting (the 20th) you will be 
loc.01425.002_large.jpg elected a member if you wish to
belong. The initiation fee is fifteen dollars, the annual dues ten. Is there any
chance of you being in town next Wednesday? If so, I could guarantee that at the
business meeting at 8 o'clock you would be elected & at nine you could come in,
as my guest for the Evening. For our system includes one
guest asked by each member. Please let me hear from you at once—whether you
would like to have your name 
loc.01425.003_large.jpg put up and also whether you will come, as guest, to the next
meeting. The club is just organised. Thirty-eight well known & less well known
writers have been approached. 36 have accepted. Our present limit is 50, and
probably five or ten will be elected next Wednesday. I want your name to head the
list, not merely because of my esteem for you personally, but because of your
importance in American letters. The club contains all the representative men who can
loc.01425.004_large.jpg be called
littérateurs, the managers of the four leading reviews & magazines, &c,
&c, & will doubtless embrace a number of the working men of letters in other
cities. So you see the need of decision before the limit of membership is reached. I
enclose you an odd copy of our circular call to the 38 & of the summons to our
first regular meeting, at which I sincerely hope that the "good gray" will be a
prominent figure. Let me know soon.
Come as guest, whether you join or not!
I think your last book throws more light on you & your work than anything yet published. No novel is so absorbing.1
Notes
- 1. This postscript, written vertically on the first page of the letter, is circled in red by Whitman and indicated by a pointing hand (☜). [back]