September, 1917 
T O C K 
T A 
41 
T 
I 
C K 
S 
A Merry Disquisition on Choosing Clocks and Avoiding Monstrosities — 
The Right Clock for the Right Place — Yo-ho Clocks and Landlubber Rooms 
T 
E 
ROLLIN' LYNDE HARTT 
<< / T'HE tick of the clock is the heart-beat 
JL of home,” wrote “Taverner” in his 
vivacious column, meaning no harm. But 
Miss Dorothy Raymond was about to be mar¬ 
ried. Her friends and relatives still cudgeled 
their brains for a happy thought in wedding 
presents—something “distinctive, you know, 
and individual,” as the day has vanished 
when a bride’s house was furnished entirely 
in cut glass and doilies. 
A fortnight passed. Then, with “Not for 
publication” on its envelope and again inside, 
came this singular communication: 
“Sir: 
“Thanks to your untimely epigram about ‘the heart¬ 
beat of home,’ my favorite cousin finds among her 
wedding presents the following: 
“3 Grandfather’s clocks. Whoppers. Except that 
they are too tall, would make excellent lighthouses. 
“2 Banjo clocks. Enormous. Might be mistaken 
for lighthouses hung up by the ears. 
“1 Fish-tank clock. Gilt-edged box. Miniature 
time-piece within. For ‘Tempus fugit,’ read ‘Et omnes 
drowndederunt qui swimmere non potuerunt.’ 
“1 Converted Teapot. China. Profusely illus¬ 
trated. Pictures of cupids, violets, rosebuds, and scene 
from ‘The Vicar of Wakefield.’ 
“4 Candid Mechanisms. Clocks treated as designers 
treat a ship’s compass. Ornament severely restrained. 
In one instance, none at all. 
“1 Cuckoo Clock. Will be a great boon to the 
groom. ‘I Cuckooes nine times.’ Where have you 
seen this face before? 
“1 Greek Scroll Clock. Plain cylinder, with a 
brace of obliging snails to keep it from rolling away. 
Enlarged, would suit the top of the Union Station. 
“2 Cemetery Clocks. White marble. Gilt statu¬ 
ettes. Suggest old epitaph, ‘The withinne have gone 
to reste.’ 
“9 Yo-ho Clocks. Round. Brassy. All warranted 
able sea-going time-pieces, with ship’s bell striking 
attachment. Twelve o’clock, eight bells. Quoth the 
bride, ‘Shiver my timbers!’ 
“On behalf of my favorite cousin, I could address 
you in words that would embitter your entire future. 
I shall content myself, however, by informing you that 
it was she who contributed to your column a few 
weeks ago the verses signed ‘D. R.’ and beginning 
‘Oh for a clockless, timeless world!’ Now will you 
be good? 
“With enthusiastic adieux, 
“Your determined 
“EX-READER.” 
An extraordinary document, every way you 
look at it. It catalogued to a nicety all the 
various species of clocks the ingenuity of man 
has contrived. In ridiculing them, it exhausted 
the utmost resources of satire. And if it fibbed 
—as possibly it did—-the fiasco it alleged was 
at least conceivable. 
A simple and seemly clock for a desk comes 
in a mahogany case with brass or mahogany 
feet. The latter are preferable. Courtesy of 
Altman 
inafter to be said can mitigate the horror of 
twenty-four clocks, especially when the victim 
sighs for a clockless, timeless world. But I have 
no charity whatever for Ex-Reader. Rising in 
his wrath, he has poured out upon clocks an ob¬ 
lation of abuse they by no means deserve. As 
there are “nine and sixty ways of constructing 
tribal lays,” there are several and sundry of 
constructing clocks, and when we get down to it 
“every single one of them is right.” 
Seriously, I doubt if any other object of use 
and decoration has suffered less ignominy at 
the hands of designers than the clock. Far and 
patiently I have searched for awful warnings 
in clocks. Deliberately I have visited the sliod- 
Another mahogany clock has an adaptation of 
the Lambon shaped dial. The markings are 
plain and distinct. Courtesy of Altman 
diest stores and the cheapest. I have even gone 
prowling among old curiosity shops, hoping 
against hope for an awful warning from out 
the dusty past. I have found a mild freak or 
two, but none worth mentioning. At worst, 
only grotesque caricatures of designs accept¬ 
able in themselves. 
Choosing an Artistic Clock 
So it comes about that choosing an artistic 
clock involves few difficulties. All—or practi¬ 
cally all—are admirable in their way. Take 
the Grandfather, for instance. What more 
logical? The weights and the long pendulum 
necessitate the towering case. The case invites 
embellishment. The style of embellishment 
suits the case. 
Or take the Banjo. Shapely in itself, it en¬ 
closes the dial and works, encloses also the 
pendulum, and gives them room enough and 
no more. Or again, take the Cemetery Clock. 
Satirists, like Ex-Reader (all such will burn) 
may christen it thus, but it is in fact a minia¬ 
ture triumphal monument, joyous and exultant, 
seeming to say, “Here ticks a priceless treasure, 
fitly housed.” 
Then, too, there is propriety in the clock 
Ex-Reader calls a “converted teapot.” The 
designer has assumed, “Given a delicate, ex¬ 
quisite instrument—a jewel among mechanisms 
—why not emphasize its daintiness?” On the 
other hand, a designer may assume, “A clock 
is a machine. We do not overdress a locomo¬ 
tive. Why, in fashioning a case for a clock, 
should we go in for ornament ?” But if a clock 
is a machine, it is at the same time a toy. Chil¬ 
dren adore it. You recall the childish song, 
“Is it not a lovely thing— 
Tra-la-la-la-la-la-la!— 
When the clock goes ring-ding-ding ? 
Tra-la-la-la-la.” 
And you recall your infantile delight in the 
pendulum. You can sympathize perfectly with 
the four-year-old young lady who was told to 
go out in the hall and see if the clock was run¬ 
ning, and reported, gleefully, “No, it’s standing 
still and wagging its tail.” Accordingly, de¬ 
signers have put clocks in glass boxes, to show 
off the wag. In the same jovial spirit, they 
have given us cuckoo clocks and of late the 
marine astonisher that cries by implication, 
“Fifteen men on the dead 
I am perfectly aware 
that this whole story 
sounds fishy. But go and 
look. Go to the swellest 
store you know. 
Twenty-four of ’Em 
There, as if to epitom¬ 
ize the history of clocks 
throughout the centuries, 
examples teem. The Old 
Guard dies, but never sur¬ 
renders. Clocks beat that; 
a fashion in clocks neither 
surrenders nor dies. At 
the swellest store, behold 
the sum total of fashions, 
ticking simultaneously! 
My heart goes out to 
Dorothy. Nothing here- 
For traveling, a clock with silver frame and face One boudoir clock is gold with 
and hands and figures of radium, the whole pink enamel face and frame set 
fitted in a blue ecrasse leather case. Courtesy in a crystal plate. Courtesy of 
of Starr Starr 
man’s chest—yo-ho-ho and 
a bottle of rum!” 
Is it frivolous, this pre¬ 
dilection for performing 
clocks? Why, bless you, 
of course it is! No one 
denies it. But is it there¬ 
fore in bad taste? Then it 
was bad taste for mediee- 
val craftsmen to carve 
whimsical jokes on mise¬ 
rere seats, and for heraldry 
to invent exuberantly com¬ 
ical beasts and birds, and 
for 13th Century architects 
to put gargoyles on cathe¬ 
drals, and for Batchelder, 
in his “Principles of De¬ 
sign,” to devote a long, 
hilarious chapter to “the 
