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From:
"John H. Muller" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 7 Dec 2013 08:49:20 -0500
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http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2013/12/06/holy-moses-its-snowing/

“Holy Moses, It’s Snowing!”
Posted by John Muller<http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/author/jmuller/>
on
Dec. 6, 2013 at 3:55 pm

Yesterday, the thermometer reached nearly 70 degrees. It's been raining all
day today. Tomorrow, snow flurries are possible, and on Sunday, there will
be an ice storm<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/12/06/major-winter-storm-sunday-briefly-snow-then-ice-significant-ice-storm-western-areas-possible/>.
No matter your opinion on global climate change, these irregular
meteorological patterns are not new to the District.

While newly arrived in the city as a capital correspondent in the winter of
1867-1868, *Mark Twain*, our country's timeless humorist, wrote about his
indifference toward our "scurrilous" weather. In his first Washington
letter to the*Virginia City Territorial Enterprise*, with a date of Dec. 4,
1867, Twain wrote:

 I have been here a matter of ten days, but I do not know much about the
place yet. There is too much weather. There is too much of it, and yet that
is not the principal trouble. It is the quality rather than the quantity of
it that I complain of; and more than against its quantity and its quality
combined am I embittered against its character. It is tricky, it is
changeable, it is to the last degree unreliable. It has catered for a
political atmosphere so long that it has come at last to be thoroughly
imbued with the political nature. As politics go, so goes the weather. It
trims to suit every phase of sentiment, and is always ready. To-day it is a
Democrat, to-morrow a Radical, the next day neither one thing nor the
other. If a Johnson man goes over to the other side, it rains; if a Radical
deserts to the Administration, it snows; if New York goes Democratic, it
blows—naturally enough; if Grant expresses an opinion between two whiffs of
smoke, it spits a little sleet uneasily; if all is quiet on the Potomac of
politics, one sees only the soft haze of Indian summer from the Capitol
windows; if the President is quiet, the sun comes out; if he touches the
tender gold market, it turns up cold and freezes out the speculators; if he
hints at foreign troubles, it hails; if he threatens Congress, it thunders;
if treason and impeachment are broached, lo, there is an earthquake!

If you are posted on politics, you are posted on the weather. I cannot
manage either; when I go out with an umbrella, the sun shines; if I go
without it, it rains; if I have my overcoat with me, I am bound to roast—if
I haven't, I am bound to freeze. Some people like Washington weather. I
don't. Some people admire mixed weather. I prefer to take mine "straight."

Nearly two decades later, in early March 1885, Twain was in Washington and
wrote his wife about his continued indifference to our clime.

Similarity between Washington and other cities probably doesn't exist. The
differences are almost innumerable. The city is big; it is also small; it
is broad; it is narrow; sometimes it is wet; sometimes it is clouded with
dust. The sun rises early, without a smile, thinly veiled and cold; later
it burns like Hell; still later the clouds rise up, and suddenly you find
yourself engulfed in darkness, wet through with rain – and, as a
consequence – your moral state quite probably upset. Before you open your
umbrella, the bad weather has again vanished and everything lies in bright
sunshine. You shut your eyes, deliver a solemn "Thank God," open your eyes
again, and Holy Moses, it's snowing!

So when the snow starts Sunday, now you've got a script to follow.

*John Muller is the author of *Mark Twain in Washington, D.C.: The
Adventures of a Capital
Correspondent<http://www.amazon.com/Mark-Twain-Washington-D-C-Correspondent/dp/1609499646/ref=la_B0096GIIC6_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386363009&sr=1-1>*,
published in October.*

-- 
John Muller
202.236.3413 l [log in to unmask]
Capital Community News l Greater Greater Washington l Huffington Post DC
*Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C: The Lion of Anacostia
<http://www.amazon.com/Frederick-Douglass-Washington-D-c-Anacostia/dp/1609495772/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=H42HP4SBZ8OA&coliid=I34OMAR1SV8L9G>*[The
History Press, 2012] - Winner of 2013
DC READS <http://www.dclibrary.org/dcreads>
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Douglassi
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/JohnMul
Mark Twain in Washington, D.C.: The Adventures of a Capital
Correspondent<http://amzn.to/19PzIFd>[The History Press, October 29,
2013]

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