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Add to My Citations To the President of the Scroll and Key Society, Yale College
18 November 1868 • Cleveland, Ohio
(MS facsimile: CtY, UCCL 02764)
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Cleveland, Nov. 18.

Mr. President
em spaceem spaceem spaceof the S. & K.1

Allow me the privilege (in haste,) of remembering myself most kindly to my esteemed & honored brethren of the S & K.—whom God preserve!

Fraternally

Mark Twain


[enclosure:] 2

Yrs Truly
em spaceSam L. Clemens
em spaceem spaceem spaceMark Twain


Explanatory Notes

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1 On 5 November Clemens became an honorary member of the Scroll and Key, a secret society for Yale College seniors and alumni, founded in 1842 for the pursuit of fellowship, moral and literary self-improvement, and charity. Clemens’s membership was sponsored by Joseph Twichell, who had been active in the society since 1859, his senior year. Twichell requested permission for Clemens to join under a provision that allowed for the election of public figures who had attained eminence in literature or art (Maynard Mack, 46, 214–15 n. 14).

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2Clemens enclosed his card, together with some “paragraphs”—possibly reviews of his Cleveland lecture—which do not survive (see the next letter).



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MS facsimile. The editors have not seen the MS, which is in a scrapbook in the Scroll and Key Society archives, Department of Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library (CtY, call no. “Scrapbook: C.S.P. 1869. Vol. 2. Junior and Senior. 378.74 YL 10 v. 2”). A photocopy of the MS was made available to the Mark Twain Papers through the kindness of Radley H. Daly and the Scroll and Key Society.

glyphglyphPrevious publication:glyph L2, 281; Maynard Mack, 214–15 n. 14.

glyphglyphProvenance:glyphThe MS has remained, since its receipt in 1868, in the possession of the Scroll and Key Society.