One of our artists has just completed an excellent large portrait of yourself, which we hope to publish in an early issue. We should like a few lines to verse to go with it, and if you could supply us with this we should feel extremely obliged.1
Yours truly, Maurice M. MintonCorrespondent:
Maurice Meyer Minton
(1859–1926) was a writer, politician, and editor, working as sports and
drama editor of the New York Telegram and managing editor
of the New York Herald. He founded The
Illustrated American in 1890 and was editor and owner until 1894;
Whitman appeared on the cover of the magazine in the April 19, 1890, issue. The
publication was a weekly photographic news magazine, published at the Bible
House, the headquarters of the American Bible Society, devoted to printing and
distributing millions of bibles. The Bible House was located in a large and
iconic cast iron building at Astor Place and East Ninth Street in New York City,
which housed several publishing businesses and was a center of intellectual and
literary activity.