Mark Twain Quote San Francisco

Anchor Brewing historian Dave Burkhart uncovers the truth behind one of the most famous quotes most San Francisco that Mark Twain didn't say.

Stereoview of Mark Twain Playing Puddle at Dwelling house.

Mark Twain in Puck December 16, 1885

Mark Twain is what Fred Shapiro, author of the Yale Book of Quotations, calls "the corking American quotation magnet." If information technology'southward clever, witty, or ironic, information technology simply must take been Twain (AKA Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835–1910)) who said it. Shapiro'due south favorite Twain remark that Twain never said was "quoted" in Evan Esar'southward Dictionary of Humorous Quotations in 1949: "Twenty-4 years agone I was strangely handsome; in San Francisco in the rainy flavour I was often mistaken for off-white weather."

Twain's almost well-known remark about the conditions is as well something he never said: "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." What native San Franciscan hasn't heard this clever quip served upwards past a shivering, Bermuda-shorted sightseer on a fogbound Golden Gate Span?

The Golden Gate Bridge South Anchorage

Marking Twain circa 1880

The first inkling to the origins of this famous non-quote lies with Mark Twain himself. It is contained in a letter he wrote in 1880 to Lucius Fairchild, a Ceremonious War general who served as Wisconsin's governor from 1866 to 1872. The Clemenses and the Fairchilds spent time together in Paris while Twain was writing A Tramp Abroad and Fairchild was the American consul. The weather in Paris in June 1879 was miserable, unlike the weather in San Francisco in June 1864, which Twain described in Virginia Urban center'due south Territorial Enterprise:

"The birds, and the flowers, and the Chinamen, and the winds, and the sunshine, and all things that go to brand life happy, are nowadays in San Francisco to-mean solar day, just as they are all days of the twelvemonth. Therefore, one would expect to hear these things spoken of, and gratefully, and disagreeable matters of little consequence allowed to laissez passer without comment. I say, one would suppose that. But don't deceive yourself—any one who supposes annihilation of the kind, supposes an absurdity. The multitude of pleasant things by which all people of San Francisco are surrounded are not talked of at all. No—they damn the wind, and they damn the grit, and they give all their attention to damning them well, and to all eternity. The blasted winds and the infernal dust—these alone grade the eternal topics of conversation, and a mighty absurd topic information technology seems to one just out of Washoe (Twain had simply arrived in San Francisco from what is at present Virginia Urban center, Nevada. It was the cosmos of the Nevada Territory, from the western function of the Utah Territory known equally Washoe, that brought Samuel Clemens and his blood brother Orion west.). There isn't enough wind here to continue jiff in my torso, or dust enough to go along sand in my craw. Simply information technology is man nature to find error—to overlook that which is pleasant to the eye, and seek after that which is distasteful to it."

Twain'southward homo nature was severely tested past French republic's nature. His distaste for Parisian conditions that leap and summer grows more than palpable with each entry in his notebook:

May 7: "I wish this eternal winter would come to an end. Snow flakes savage to-day, & as well most a week ago. Have had rain about without break for 2 months and one calendar week. Accept had a fire [in the fireplace] every day since Sept. 10, & have now just lighted ane."

May 28: "This is i of the coldest days of this almost damnable & interminable winter."

June one: "Still this vindictive winter continues. Had a raw cold pelting to-day; to-night we sit around a rousing forest burn."

A calendar week later, Twain became and so exasperated with the wintry Parisian summer that he decided to shop for firewood—at least metaphorically—at Tiffany's.

"Thinking Tiffany would give honest measure, went there & ordered 15 sticks of wood. He said he had none in stock—said his license immune him to bargain just in such jewelry equally comes under the caput of 'wearing apparel.' Said a great jeweler here once attempted to evade or ignore this, but the moment he displayed a forest-pile in his showcase the regular woods dealers mutinied in a body & began to sell diamonds in their woodyards at ruinous rates. This brought most an immediate compromise, & the ii trades have never encroached upon each other'south domains since."

Twain had clearly had plenty. A few lines downwardly he made this pithily humorous entry:

"French republic has neither winter nor summer nor morals—apart from those drawbacks it is a fine country."

The Mark Twain House, where the Clemenses lived from 1874 to 1891

By September 1879, the Clemenses were dorsum in the practiced old U.S. of A., where Twain finally completed A Tramp Abroad the following January. On April 28, 1880, from his home in Hartford, he wrote Lucius Fairchild a letter congratulating him on his engagement 4 months before to the post of Envoy Boggling and Minister Plenipotentiary to Espana. Twain began:

"Dear General:
"For this long time I have been intending to congratulate you fervently upon your translation to—to—anywhere—for anywhere is better than Paris. Paris the cold, Paris the drizzly, Paris the rainy, Paris the Damnable. More a hundred years ago, somebody asked Quin, 'Did you ever meet such a winter in all your life earlier?' 'Yes,' said he, 'last summertime.' I judge he spent his summer in Paris. Let us change the saying; let u.s.a. say all bad Americans go to Paris when they die. No let united states not say it; for this adds a new horror to immortality."

Different our Bermuda-shorted tourist, Twain at least gave credit where credit was due. Only who was Quin, this obscure, eighteenth-century wit with 1 proper name?

Portrait of Quin from The Life of Mr. James Quin (1887)

As it turns out, he was the famous Drury Lane and Covent Garden actor and epicure James Quin (1693–1766), renowned for his portrayal of the phase'south greatest characters, from Falstaff to Cato. Coincidentally, both of these characters have a beer connection.

Falstaff is not just the star of Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor and its operatic spinoff, Verdi's Falstaff. He also inspired one of America's favorite beers, a beer once brewed in San Francisco and a beer that no one ever thought Anchor Steam would outlive! Falstaff (like Lucky Lager) was once made in San Francisco by General Brewing. On March 31, 1978, when General close down, it left a tiny, little enterprise (and its relatively unknown beer, Ballast Steam) as San Francisco's sole surviving brewery!
Joseph Addison'south 1713 play Cato. A Tragedy was a George Washington favorite, and with good reason. Its protagonist is the great Roman politician and orator Cato the Younger (95–46 B.C.E.). If Mark Twain is the quote magnet, then Cato, thank you to Addison (1672–1719), might best exist described as the quote mother lode. Many of our founding fathers' most famous quotes, from Nathan Hale's "I only regret, that I have only one life to lose for my country" (Cato: "What Compassion is it That we can die but Once to serve our State!") to a line oft delivered in our Anchor taproom, Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty, or give me expiry" (Cato: "It is at present a time to talk of nada But Bondage, or Conquest; Liberty, or Decease."), may be traced straight to lines from Addison's play.

Championship Page from Quin's Jests (1766)

A trip to the San Francisco Public Library afforded me the opportunity to examine firsthand two fascinating little books about James Quin. The first, Quin's Jests; or the Facetious Man's Pocket–Companion. Containing every Species of Wit, Humour, and Repartee, with a Compleat Collection of Epigrams, Bon-mots, etc., etc., was published in London in 1766, the year of Quin's expiry. Information technology is moderately entertaining (Twain's humor is universal and eternal, Quin's—with a few exceptions—is unfortunately neither), but regrettably devoid of the seasonal wit I was seeking.

Championship Folio from The Life of Mr. James Quin (1887)

Only the library had some other short book about Quin, with an even longer long title, The Life of Mr. James Quin Comedian, with the History of the Phase from his Commencing Player to his Retreat to Bath. Illustrated with Many Curious and Interesting Anecdotes of Several Persons of Distinction, Literature, and Gallantry to Which is Added a Supplement of Original Facts and Anecdotes, Arranged from Authentic Sources, together with his Trial for the Murder of One thousand. Bowen, published in London in 1887. It contains a detailed account of Quin's life and his trial for the murder of a fellow actor, William Bowen, who took umbrage at Quin's opinion of his interim. Here, at concluding, was the Quin quote in question:

"BON MOT OF QUIN.—One summer, when the month of July happened to be extremely common cold, some person asked Quin if he e'er remembered such a summer. 'Oh yes,' replied the wag, 'last winter.'"

From The Life of Mr. James Quin (1887)

Eureka! But await a infinitesimal. Although the offset office of this tiny tome contains a reprint of a book published, like Quin's Jests, in 1766, Quin'southward bon mot was in the 2nd office, not published until 1887. And Twain'due south letter was written seven years earlier that. I had my source, simply what was Twain's? Bold he had read it rather than heard it, he must have seen it in the merely other known pre-1880 mention of Quin's quote, which, I was relieved to larn, was besides at the SFPL.

Frontispiece and Title Page from The Letters of Horace Walpole (1840)

Published in 1840, it is The Messages of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford: Including Numerous Letters now Published from the Original Manuscripts, Vol. VI, which contains letters by Walpole written from 1778 until the year of his death, 1797.

Miss Mary Berry from The Messages of Horace Walpole (1840)

In a alphabetic character from Strawberry Loma dated July 29, 1789, Walpole writes Miss Berry in Italy about the "insufferable conditions… not i hot mean solar day; and, if a morning shines, the evening closes with a heavy shower." Walpole continues this letter on July 31 with an allusion to St. Swithin (besides spelled Swithun). The ninth-century Bishop of Winchester's asking to buried outside rather than within Winchester Cathedral was united nations-granted 109 years after his decease when, in 971, he was moved inside, whereupon, according to fable, it rained for twoscore days. So, tradition has it that if it rains on St. Smithun'south feast day, July 15, you're in for a wet summer.

"To-solar day I have dined at Fulham forth with Mrs. Boscawen; merely St. Swithin played the devil so, that we could not sit out of doors, and had fires to chase the watery spirits. Quin, being once asked if he had always seen and so bad a winter, replied, 'Yeah, just such an one equally last summer!'—and here is its younger brother!"

At final, hither was Twain's source for Quin's quip. To Twain's credit, he never took credit for the greatest quote never written virtually summertime in San Francisco.

Anchor-Summer-can-100w If the mighty Quin lived in San Francisco today, of course, the British bon vivant would certainly have much to say nearly the arts, the food, the beer, and, no uncertainty, the weather. And mayhap he would give us this: