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Clocks by Jerome K. Jerome
There are two kinds of clocks. There is the clock that is always wrong, and that knows
it is wrong, and glories in it; and there is the clock that is always right — except
when you rely upon it, and then it is more wrong than you would think a clock _could_
be in a civilized country. I remember a clock of this latter type, that we had in the house
when I was a boy, routing us all up at three o'clock one winter's morning. We had finished
breakfast at ten minutes to four, and I got to school a little after five, and sat down
on the step outside and cried, because I thought the world had come to an end; everything was
so death-like! The man who can live in the same house with one of these clocks, and not
endanger his chance of heaven about once a month by standing up and telling it what he
thinks of it, is either a dangerous rival to that old established firm, Job, or else
he does not know enough bad language to make it worth his while to start saying anything
at all. The great dream of its life is to lure you on into trying to catch a train by
it. For weeks and weeks it will keep the most perfect time. If there were any difference
in time between that clock and the sun, you would be convinced it was the sun, not the
clock, that wanted seeing to. You feel that if that clock happened to get a quarter of
a second fast, or the eighth of an instant slow, it would break its heart and die. It
is in this spirit of child-like faith in its integrity that, one morning, you gather your
family around you in the passage, kiss your children, and afterward wipe your jammy mouth,
poke your finger in the baby's eye, promise not to forget to order the coals, wave at
last fond adieu with the umbrella, and depart for the railway-station. I never have been
quite able to decide, myself, which is the more irritating to run two miles at the top
of your speed, and then to find, when you reach the station, that you are three-quarters
of an hour too early; or to stroll along leisurely the whole way, and dawdle about outside the
booking-office, talking to some local idiot, and then to swagger carelessly on to the platform,
just in time to see the train go out! As for the other class of clocks — the common or
always-wrong clocks — they are harmless enough. You wind them up at the proper intervals,
and once or twice a week you put them right and "regulate" them, as you call it (and you
might just as well try to "regulate" a London tom-cat). But you do all this, not from any
selfish motives, but from a sense of duty to the clock itself. You want to feel that,
whatever may happen, you have done the right thing by it, and that no blame can attach
to you. So far as looking to it for any return is concerned, that you never dream of doing,
and consequently you are not disappointed. You ask what the time is, and the girl replies:
"Well, the clock in the dining-room says a quarter past two." But you are not deceived
by this. You know that, as a matter of fact, it must be somewhere between nine and ten
in the evening; and, remembering that you noticed, as a curious circumstance, that the
clock was only forty minutes past four, hours ago, you mildly admire its energies and resources,
and wonder how it does it. I myself possess a clock that for complicated unconventionality
and light-hearted independence, could, I should think, give points to anything yet discovered
in the chronometrical line. As a mere time-piece, it leaves much to be desired; but, considered
as a self-acting conundrum, it is full of interest and variety. I heard of a man once
who had a clock that he used to say was of no good to any one except himself, because
he was the only man who understood it. He said it was an excellent clock, and one that
you could thoroughly depend upon; but you wanted to know it — to have studied its
system. An outsider might be easily misled by it. "For instance," he would say, "when
it strikes fifteen, and the hands point to twenty minutes past eleven, I know it is a
quarter to eight." His acquaintanceship with that clock must certainly have given him an
advantage over the cursory observer! But the great charm about my clock is its reliable
uncertainty. It works on no method whatever; it is a pure emotionalist. One day it will
be quite frolicsome, and gain three hours in the course of the morning, and think nothing
of it; and the next day it will wish it were dead, and be hardly able to drag itself along,
and lose two hours out of every four, and stop altogether in the afternoon, too miserable
to do anything; and then, getting cheerful once more toward evening, will start off again
of its own accord. I do not care to talk much about this clock; because when I tell the
simple truth concerning it, people think I am exaggerating. It is very discouraging to
find, when you are straining every nerve to tell the truth, that people do not believe
you, and fancy that you are exaggerating. It makes you feel inclined to go and exaggerate
on purpose, just to show them the difference. I know I often feel tempted to do so myself
— it is my early training that saves me. We should always be very careful never to
give way to exaggeration; it is a habit that grows upon one. And it is such a vulgar habit,
too. In the old times, when poets and dry-goods salesmen were the only people who exaggerated,
there was something clever and _distingue_ about a reputation for "a tendency to over,
rather than to under-estimate the mere bald facts." But everybody exaggerates nowadays.
The art of exaggeration is no longer regarded as an "extra" in the modern bill of education;
it is an essential requirement, held to be most needful for the battle of life. The whole
world exaggerates. It exaggerates everything, from the yearly number of bicycles sold to
the yearly number of heathens converted — into the hope of salvation and more whiskey. Exaggeration
is the basis of our trade, the fallow-field of our art and literature, the groundwork
of our social life, the foundation of our political existence. As schoolboys, we exaggerate
our fights and our marks and our fathers' debts. As men, we exaggerate our wares, we
exaggerate our feelings, we exaggerate our incomes — except to the tax-collector, and
to him we exaggerate our "outgoings"; we exaggerate our virtues; we even exaggerate our vices,
and, being in reality the mildest of men, pretend we are dare-devil scamps. We have
sunk so low now that we try to _act_ our exaggerations, and to live up to our lies. We call it "keeping
up appearances;" and no more bitter phrase could, perhaps, have been invented to describe
our childish folly. If we possess a hundred pounds a year, do we not call it two? Our
larder may be low and our grates be chill, but we are happy if the "world" (six acquaintances
and a prying neighbor) gives us credit for one hundred and fifty. And, when we have five
hundred, we talk of a thousand, and the all-important and beloved "world" (sixteen friends now,
and two of them carriage-folks!) agree that we really must be spending seven hundred,
or at all events, running into debt up to that figure; but the butcher and baker, who
have gone into the matter with the housemaid, know better. After awhile, having learned
the trick, we launch out boldly and spend like Indian Princes — or rather _seem_ to
spend; for we know, by this time, how to purchase the seeming with the seeming, how to buy the
appearance of wealth with the appearance of cash. And the dear old world — Beelzebub
bless it! for it is his own child, sure enough; there is no mistaking the likeness, it has
all his funny little ways — gathers round, applauding and laughing at the lie, and sharing
in the cheat, and gloating over the thought of the blow that it knows must sooner or later
fall on us from the Thor-like hammer of Truth. And all goes merry as a witches' frolic — until
the gray morning dawns. Truth and fact are old-fashioned and out-of-date, my friends,
fit only for the dull and vulgar to live by. Appearance, not reality, is what the clever
dog grasps at in these clever days. We spurn the dull-brown solid earth; we build our lives
and homes in the fair-seeming rainbow-land of shadow and chimera. To ourselves, sleeping
and waking there, _behind_ the rainbow, there is no beauty in the house; only a chill damp
mist in every room, and, over all, a haunting fear of the hour when the gilded clouds will
melt away, and let us fall — somewhat heavily, no doubt — upon the hard world underneath.
But, there! of what matter is _our_ misery, _our_ terror? To the stranger, our home appears
fair and bright. The workers in the fields below look up and envy us our abode of glory
and delight! If _they_ think it pleasant, surely _we_ should be content. Have we not
been taught to live for others and not for ourselves, and are we not acting up bravely
to the teaching — in this most curious method? Ah! yes, we are self-sacrificing enough, and
loyal enough in our devotion to this new-crowned king, the child of Prince Imposture and Princess
Pretense. Never before was despot so blindly worshiped! Never had earthly sovereign yet
such world-wide sway! Man, if he would live, _must_ worship. He looks around, and what
to him, within the vision of his life, is the greatest and the best, that he falls down
and does reverence to. To him whose eyes have opened on the nineteenth century, what nobler
image can the universe produce than the figure of Falsehood in stolen robes? It is cunning
and brazen and hollow-hearted, and it realizes his souls ideal, and he falls and kisses its
feet, and clings to its skinny knees, swearing fealty to it for evermore! Ah! he is a mighty
monarch, bladder-bodied King Humbug! Come, let us build up temples of hewn shadows wherein
we may adore him, safe from the light. Let us raise him aloft upon our Brummagem shields.
Long live our coward, falsehearted chief! — fit leader for such soldiers as we! Long
live the Lord-of-Lies, anointed! Long live poor King Appearances, to whom all mankind
bows the knee! But we must hold him aloft very carefully, oh, my brother warriors! He
needs much "keeping up." He has no bones and sinews of his own, the poor old flimsy fellow!
If we take our hands from him, he will fall a heap of worn-out rags, and the angry wind
will whirl him away, and leave us forlorn. Oh, let us spend our lives keeping him up,
and serving him, and making him great — that is, evermore puffed out with air and nothingness
— until he burst, and we along with him! Burst one day he must, as it is in the nature
of bubbles to burst, especially when they grow big. Meanwhile, he still reigns over
us, and the world grows more and more a world of pretense and exaggeration and lies; and
he who pretends and exaggerates and lies the most successfully, is the greatest of us all.
The world is a gingerbread fair, and we all stand outside our booths and point to the
gorgeous-colored pictures, and beat the big drum and brag. Brag! brag! Life is one great
game of brag! "Buy my soap, oh ye people, and ye will never look old, and the hair will
grow again on your bald places, and ye will never be poor or unhappy again; and mine is
the only true soap. Oh, beware of spurious imitations!" "Buy my lotion, all ye that suffer
from pains in the head, or the stomach, or the feet, or that have broken arms, or broken
hearts, or objectionable mothers-in-law; and drink one bottle a day, and all your troubles
will be ended." "Come to my church, all ye that want to go to Heaven, and buy my penny
weekly guide, and pay my pew-rates; and, pray ye, have nothing to do with my misguided brother
over the road. _This_ is the only safe way!" "Oh, vote for me, my noble and intelligent
electors, and send our party into power, and the world shall be a new place, and there
shall be no sin or sorrow any more! And each free and independent voter shall have a bran
new Utopia made on purpose for him, according to his own ideas, with a good-sized, extra-unpleasant
purgatory attached, to which he can send everybody he does not like. Oh! do not miss this chance!"
Oh! listen to my philosophy, it is the best and deepest. Oh! hear my songs, they are the
sweetest. Oh! buy my pictures, they alone are true art. Oh! read my books, they are
the finest. Oh! _I_ am the greatest cheesemonger, _I_ am the greatest soldier, _I_ am the greatest
statesman, _I_ am the greatest poet, _I_ am the greatest showman, _I_ am the greatest
mountebank, _I_ am the greatest editor, and _I_ am the greatest patriot. _We_ are the
greatest nation. _We_ are the only good people. _Ours_ is the only true religion. Bah! how
we all yell! How we all brag and bounce, and beat the drum and shout; and nobody believes
a word we utter; and the people ask one another, saying: "How can we tell who is the greatest
and the cleverest among all these shrieking braggarts?" And they answer: "There is none
great or clever. The great and clever men are not here; there is no place for them in
this pandemonium of charlatans and quacks. The men you see here are crowing ***. We
suppose the greatest and the best of _them_ are they who crow the loudest and the longest;
that is the only test of _their_ merits." Therefore, what is left for us to do, but
to crow? And the best and greatest of us all, is he who crows the loudest and the longest
on this little dunghill that we call our world! Well, I was going to tell you about our clock.
It was my wife's idea, getting it, in the first instance. We had been to dinner at the
Buggles', and Buggles had just bought a clock — "picked it up in Essex," was the way he
described the transaction. Buggles is always going about "picking up" things. He will stand
before an old carved bedstead, weighing about three tons, and say: "Yes — pretty little
thing! I picked it up in Holland;" as though he had found it by the roadside, and slipped
it into his umbrella when nobody was looking! Buggles was rather full of this clock. It
was of the good old-fashioned "grandfather" type. It stood eight feet high, in a carved-oak
case, and had a deep, sonorous, solemn tick, that made a pleasant accompaniment to the
after-dinner chat, and seemed to fill the room with an air of homely dignity. We discussed
the clock, and Buggles said how he loved the sound of its slow, grave tick; and how, when
all the house was still, and he and it were sitting up alone together, it seemed like
some wise old friend talking to him, and telling him about the old days and the old ways of
thought, and the old life and the old people. The clock impressed my wife very much. She
was very thoughtful all the way home, and, as we went upstairs to our flat, she said,
"Why could not we have a clock like that?" She said it would seem like having some one
in the house to take care of us all — she should fancy it was looking after baby! I
have a man in Northamptonshire from whom I buy old furniture now and then, and to him
I applied. He answered by return to say that he had got exactly the very thing I wanted.
(He always has. I am very lucky in this respect.) It was the quaintest and most old-fashioned
clock he had come across for a long while, and he enclosed photograph and full particulars;
should he send it up? From the photograph and the particulars, it seemed, as he said,
the very thing, and I told him, "Yes; send it up at once." Three days afterward, there
came a knock at the door — there had been other knocks at the door before this, of course;
but I am dealing merely with the history of the clock. The girl said a couple of men were
outside, and wanted to see me, and I went to them. I found they were Pickford's carriers,
and glancing at the way-bill, I saw that it was my clock that they had brought, and I
said, airily, "Oh, yes, it's quite right; bring it up!" They said they were very sorry,
but that was just the difficulty. They could not get it up. I went down with them, and
wedged securely across the second landing of the staircase, I found a box which I should
have judged to be the original case in which Cleopatra's Needle came over. They said that
was my clock. I brought down a chopper and a crowbar, and we sent out and collected in
two extra hired ruffians and the five of us worked away for half an hour and got the clock
out; after which the traffic up and down the staircase was resumed, much to the satisfaction
of the other tenants. We then got the clock upstairs and put it together, and I fixed
it in the corner of the dining-room. At first it exhibited a strong desire to topple over
and fall on people, but by the liberal use of nails and screws and bits of firewood,
I made life in the same room with it possible, and then, being exhausted, I had my wounds
dressed, and went to bed. In the middle of the night my wife woke me up in a great state
of alarm, to say that the clock had just struck thirteen, and who did I think was going to
die? I said I did not know, but hoped it might be the next-door dog. My wife said she had
a presentiment it meant baby. There was no comforting her; she cried herself to sleep
again. During the course of the morning, I succeeded in persuading her that she must
have made a mistake, and she consented to smile once more. In the afternoon the clock
struck thirteen again. This renewed all her fears. She was convinced now that both baby
and I were doomed, and that she would be left a childless widow. I tried to treat the matter
as a joke, and this only made her more wretched. She said that she could see I really felt
as she did, and was only pretending to be light-hearted for her sake, and she said she
would try and bear it bravely. The person she chiefly blamed was Buggles. In the night
the clock gave us another warning, and my wife accepted it for her Aunt Maria, and seemed
resigned. She wished, however, that I had never had the clock, and wondered when, if
ever, I should get cured of my absurd craze for filling the house with tomfoolery. The
next day the clock struck thirteen four times and this cheered her up. She said that if
we were all going to die, it did not so much matter. Most likely there was a fever or a
plague coming, and we should all be taken together. She was quite light-hearted over
it! After that the clock went on and killed every friend and relation we had, and then
it started on the neighbors. It struck thirteen all day long for months, until we were sick
of slaughter, and there could not have been a human being left alive for miles around.
Then it turned over a new leaf, and gave up murdering folks, and took to striking mere
harmless thirty-nines and forty-ones. Its favorite number now is thirty-two, but once
a day it strikes forty-nine. It never strikes more than forty-nine. I don't know why — I
have never been able to understand why — but it doesn't. It does not strike at regular
intervals, but when it feels it wants to and would be better for it. Sometimes it strikes
three or four times within the same hour, and at other times it will go for half-a-day
without striking at all. He is an odd old fellow! I have thought now and then of having
him "seen to," and made to keep regular hours and be respectable; but, somehow, I seem to
have grown to love him as he is with his daring mockery of Time. He certainly has not much
respect for it. He seems to go out of his way almost to openly insult it. He calls half-past
two thirty-eight o'clock, and in twenty minutes from then he says it is one! Is it that he
really has grown to feel contempt for his master, and wishes to show it? They say no
man is a hero to his valet; may it be that even stony-face Time himself is but a short-lived,
puny mortal — a little greater than some others, that is all — to the dim eyes of
this old servant of his? Has he, ticking, ticking, all these years, come at last to
see into the littleness of that Time that looms so great to our awed human eyes? Is
he saying, as he grimly laughs, and strikes his thirty-fives and forties: "Bah! I know
you, Time, godlike and dread though you seem. What are you but a phantom — a dream — like
the rest of us here? Ay, less, for you will pass away and be no more. Fear him not, immortal
men. Time is but the shadow of the world upon the background of Eternity!"
End of Clocks by Jerome K. Jerome
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