Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/249

 somber tone which has given it its name of blue Monday. In the early days of a simpler life in our country, when the customs of the pioneer had not been superseded by the complexities of modern existence, its color used to be ascribed to the fact that it was wash day, and perhaps it has remained a sort of moral wash day ever since. At any rate we soon discovered that everyone who had a grievance or a complaint or a suggestion about his neighbor or some larger scheme of reforming whole groups of the population was most likely to be heavily charged with it on Monday, and since the almost universal conception among us is that all reforms can be wrought by the mayor, by the simple process of issuing an order to the police, these complaints were of course lodged at the mayor's office.

They were of a curious variety, expressing, I suppose, not only all the moral yearnings of mankind, but all the meaner moods of human nature, and each new Monday morning seemed to have in reserve, for a nature that was trying to keep its faith in humanity, some fresh and theretofore unimagined instance of the depths of little meannesses to which human nature is capable of sinking. Many of them came in person with their criticism, others sent anonymous letters. Then there were those who came to repeat ugly things they had heard about me; "I wouldn't tell you this if I were not your friend. I think you ought to know it." Later in the afternoon the evenings newspapers, with the criticisms marked, were laid on my desk. All this made Monday the hardest day of the week, especially as the day closed