The Lotos Club was founded in 1870 as a gentlemen's club in New York City; it has since also admitted women as members. Its founders were primarily a young group of writers and critics. Mark Twain, an early member, called it the "Ace of Clubs". The Club took its name from the poem "The Lotos-Eaters" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, which was then very popular. Lotos was thought to convey an idea of rest and harmony. Two lines from the poem were selected for the Club motto: In the afternoon they came unto a landIn which it seemed always afternoon