The selection of proper clocks for one's house is always long-drawn-out,
a pursuit of real pleasure. Clocks are such necessary things the
thoughtless woman is apt to compromise, when she doesn't find exactly
the right one. How much wiser and happier she would be if she decided to
depend upon an ordinary alarm clock until the proper clock was
discovered! If she made a hobby of her quest for clocks she would find
much amusement, many other valuable objects by-the-way, and finally
exactly the right clocks for her rooms.
Everyone knows the merits and demerits of the hundreds of clocks of
commerce, and it isn't for me to go into the subject of
grandfather-clocks, bracket clocks, and banjo clocks, when there are so
many excellent books on the subject. I plead for the graceful clocks of
old France, the _objets d'art_ so lovingly designed by the master
sculptors of the Eighteenth Century. I plead particularly for the wall
clocks that are so conspicuous in all good French houses, and so unusual
in our own country.
[Illustration: A PROPER WRITING-TABLE IN THE DRAWING-ROOM.]
Just as surely as our fine old English and American clocks have their
proper niches, so the French clocks belong inevitably in certain rooms.
You may never find just the proper clock for this room, but that is your
fault. There are hundreds of lovely old models available. Why shouldn't
some manufacturer have them reproduced?
I feel that if women generally knew how very decorative and
distinguished a good wall clock may be, the demand would soon create a
supply of these beautiful objects. It would be quite simple for the
manufacturers to make them from the old models. The late Mr. Pierpont
Morgan gave to the Metropolitan Museum the magnificent Hoentschel
collection of _objets d'art_, hoping to stimulate the interest of
American designers and artisans in the fine models of the Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Centuries. There are some very fine examples of wall
clocks in this collection which might be copied in carved wood by the
students of manual training schools, if the manufacturers refuse to be
interested.
Wall clocks first came into France in the early part of the Seventeenth
Century, and are a part of the furnishing of all the fine old French
houses. A number of the most interesting clocks I have picked up were
the wooden models which served for the fine bronze clocks of the
Eighteenth Century. The master designer first worked out his idea in
wood before making the clock in bronze, and the wooden models were sold
for a song. I have one of these clocks in my dining-room. It is as much
a part of the wall decoration as the lights or the mirrors.
The wall clocks I like best are fixed directly on the wall, the dial
glass opening so that the clock may be wound with a key. You will notice
such a clock in the photograph of one of my dining-rooms. This fine old
clock is given the place of honor in the main panel of the wall, above
the console table. I often use such a clock in a dining-room, just as I
use the fine old French mantel clocks in my drawing-rooms. You will
observe a very quaint example of the Empire period in the illustration
of my drawing-room mantel. This clock is happily placed, for the marble
of the mantel, the lighting-fixtures near by and the fine little bronze
busts are all in key with the exquisite workmanship of the clock. In
another room in my house, a bedroom, there is a beautiful little French
clock that is the only object allowed on the mantel shelf. The beautiful
carving of the mirror frame back of it seems a part of the clock, a
deliberate background for it. This is one of the many wall clocks which
were known as bracket clocks, the bracket being as carefully designed
and carved as the clock itself. Most of the clocks we see nowadays grew
out of the old bracket models.
The American clockmakers of the Eighteenth Century made many of those
jolly little wall clocks called Wag-on-the-Wall. These clocks may be
still picked up in out-of-the-way towns. In construction they are very
much like the old cuckoo clock which has come to us from Switzerland,
and the tile clock which comes from Holland. These clocks with long,
exposed weights and pendulum, have not the dignity of the French wall
clocks, which were as complete in themselves as fine _bas reliefs_, and
of even greater decorative importance.
Every room in my house has its clock, and to me these magic little
instruments have an almost human interest. They seem always friendly to
me, whether they mark off the hours that weigh so heavily and seem
never-ending, or the happy hours that go all too quickly. I love clocks
so much myself that it always astonishes me to go into a room where
there is none, or, if there is, it is one of those abortive,
exaggerated, gilded clocks that are falsely labeled "French" and sold at
a great price in the shops. Somehow, one never expects a clock of this
kind to keep time--it is bought as an ornament and if it runs at all it
wheezes, or gasps, or makes a dreadful noise, and invariably stops at
half-past three.
I am such a crank about good clocks that I take my own with me, even on
a railway train. I think I have the smallest clock in the world which
strikes the hours. There are many tiny clocks made which strike if one
touches a spring, but my clock always strikes of itself. Cartier, who
designed and made this extraordinary timepiece, assures me that he has
never seen so small a clock which strikes. It is very pleasant to have
this little clock with its friendly chime with me when I am in some
desolate hotel or some strange house.
There are traveling clocks in small leather cases which can be bought
very cheaply indeed now, and one of these clocks should be a part of
everyone's traveling equipment. The humble nickeled watch with a leather
case is infinitely better than the pretentious clocks, monstrosities of
marble and brass and bad taste.