Time's Laundry.
There is nothing so new as time!
Every fresh day is absolutely unique. It comes unexampled, unspoiled, original, out of the treasure-house of Time. He brings from that storeroom, not "things new and old," like the householder of the Bible, but only things brand-new.
No two days begin alike. The sun never rises twice in the same way. There are always variations in the weather. You never feel the same two days in succession. The greetings of friends are different. Your tasks, however monotonous, always come upon you from a slightly different angle. There are incessant little changes all through the most humdrum series of days.
Homer, in his great poems, lingers lovingly over a laundry scene, and exults in "garments for a change He must have appreciated the kindness done men and women by Father Time in washing out our lives for us every night, washing and ironing them, and laying them by our bedsides clean and white and shining for us to array ourselves exultantly every morning.
There are souls so mean and degraded that in spite of this gracious attention they hunt around in the closet, fish out some soiled linen, and deliberately put it on, casting only a sour glance at the fresh clothes waiting for them by the bedside. Heaven forbid that such a soul be mine on any day of the year.
My Selection.
I went to the Florist that grows new years and told him I wanted a good one, the very best he had. "With pleasure," he said, and started to get it. "But I want to go too," I called after him. "I want to pick it out myself."
"Against the rules," answered the Florist, "but you may look in through this glass door." I did, and pointed out the new year that grew the tallest and had the loveliest blossoms. But something must have been the matter with the glass in that door, for when the Florist snipped off the new year and brought it out it was stumpy, and withered, and colorless. "I intended," said the Florist, "to give you a perfect beauty, if you had only let me pick it out."