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27. The Weather of New England
- University of Iowa Press
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100 MARK TWAIN SPEAKING· 27· For the seventy-first annual dinner ofthe New England Society ofN ew York the hall was decorated with flags and bouquets, the president's table with a floral design representing Plymouth Rock. Among the 200 banqueters were Mark Twain, the Reverend Edward Everett Hale, George William Curtis, the Reverend Richard S. Storrs, Joseph H. Choate, representatives ofSt. Andrews and St. Patrick's Societies, and Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, who became celebrated as sculptor ofthe Statue ofLiberty. The Times reported, Dece1nber 23, 1876, that the affair was "one ofthe most brilliant celebrations ofthe kind that has ever been held in this city," and that the speeches were '1ull of earnestness, goodfeeling, good sense, and good wit." The Oldest Inhabitant-The Weather of New England Seventy-first Annual Dinner, New England Society ofNew York, Delmonico's, December 22, 1876 Who can lose it and forget it? Who can have it and regret it? Be interposer 'twixt us Twain. Merchant of Venice Gentlemen: I reverently believe that the Maker who made us all, makes everything in New England-but the weather. I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be raw apprentices in the Weather Clerk's factory, who experiment and learn how in New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere if they don't get it. There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration-and regret. The weather is always doing something there; always attending strictly to business; always getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see how they will go. But it gets through more business in spring than in any other season. In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and MARK TWAIN SPEAKING 101 twenty hours. It was I that made the fame and fortune of that man that had that marvelous collection of weather on exhibition at the Centennial that so astounded the foreigners. He was going to travel all over the world and get specimens from all the climes. I said, "Don't you do it~ you come to New England on a favorable spring day." I told him what we could do, in the way of style, variety, and quantity. Well, he came, and he made his collection in four days. As to variety-why, he confessed that he got hundreds of kinds of weather that he had never heard of before. And as to quantity-well, after he had picked out and discarded all that was blemished in any way, he not only had weather enough, but weather to spare; weather to hire out; weather to sell; to deposit; weather to invest; weather to give to the poor. The people of New England are by nature patient and forbearing; but there are some things which they will not stand. Every year they kill a lot ofpoets for writing about "Beautiful Spring." These are generally casual visitors, who bring their notions ofspring from somewhere else, and cannot, ofcourse, know how the natives feel about spring. And so, the first thing they know, the opportunity to inquire how they feel has permanently gone by. Old Probabilities has a mighty reputation for accurate prophecy, and thoroughly well deserves it. You take up the papers and observe how crisply and confidently he checks off what today's weather is going to be on the Pacific, down South, in the Middle States, in the Wisconsin region; see him sail along in the joy and pride of his power till he gets to New England, and then-see his tail drop. He doesn't know what the weather is going to be like in New England. He can't any more tell than he can tell how many Presidents ofthe United States there's going to be next year. Well, he mulls over it, and by and by he gets out something about like this: Probable nor'-east to sou'-west winds, varying to the southard and westard and eastard and points between; high and low barometer, swapping around from place to place; probable areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by earthquakes, with thunder and lightning. Then he jots down this postscript from his wandering mind, to cover accidents: "But it is possible that the program may be...