March 23 Saturday – In New York, Sam wrote a letter to John Elderkin, secretary of the Lotos Club. The letter was printed in the N.Y. Tribune for Apr. 25, 1895, p.11, along with a notice that “Mark Twain has been elected a life member of the Lotos Club.”

I have been wandering the highways for a week, hence the trouble your welcome letter has had in finding me. Welcome is the right word, for nothing could be welcomer than the compliment it brings me. It is an honor to be a member of the Lotos Club, and this honor I have held and prized for a good two-thirds of a generation; in promoting me to a life membership the directors have augmented this honor and added to it the quality of distinction. There is not a veteran of us all who could be producer of this token of approval and good-fellowship which began when my head was brown and has lasted till it is gray; began when I “came unto a land where it seemed always afternoon,” and continue now when I have reached a land where it is always afternoon — and but little left of that.

I wish I could be with you the night of the [gathering] and say my thanks with my mouth, and help brethren go back in reminiscent pilgrimage the twenty-five milestones and make certain of dead live again — Oh, John Brougham, what a cancy [chance] you made when you went out from us! I shall be on the ocean then; my sailing is imperative and unavoidable. Still, I can be with your spirit and shall be; and at 11 that night, New time, I will drink health and love to you all, hope that you will do the like for me.