First begging your pardon & hoping "I dont intrude" (yet knowing I do)—I am writing for the magazine market—or rather have written—a reminiscence of the actors & plays & "the old Bowery" of my youthful days—the chief figure in it being your father—by far the greatest histrion I have ever seen in my life (& I have always been a theatre goer)—
What I write to you now for, I want a good characteristic portrait of your father either in citizen's costume, or, (if very good) in one of his dramatic characters, to wood-engrave an illustration from—say to make a picture to fill ab't the size of one of the Harper's Magazine pages. Can you help me to it?
I am disabled coop'd up here, & can't get about to get things for myself—or I wouldn't trouble you—
Won't you allow me to send you an autograph copy of my "Leaves of Grass" as a nibble at recompense?
Walt Whitman