To Cyril Coniston Clemens
Hotel Bristol
Rome. December 18, 1936
Dear Clemens,
Thank you and your committee for your congratulations for still being in this world. It is a dubious privilege in itself, especially at the age of 73, but I am in good health and spirits, and willing to exist a little longer, Deo volente.
As to my medal, and the inscription you propose, I suppose, being from the Mark Twain Society, it is meant to humorous. But most people would laugh at us, not with us; and please choose something else, or (better) nothing at all. I have an imitation-gold medal from the Royal Society of Literature which says simply Honoris Causa and leaves the rest to the imagination. That at least is safe.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Five, 1933-1936. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham NC.