Explore "The Stopped Clock" by E.V. Lucas on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Fables
Once upon a time there was a discredited politician whose nostrums no / longer took any one in. And being thrown out of office he wandered / about, seeking, like many men before him, for comfort and consolation / among his inferiors. These, however, failing him, he passed on to the / lower animals, and from them to the inanimate, until he came one day to / a clock which, the works having been removed, consisted only of a case, / a face, and two hands.
"Ha," said the politician, as he stood before it, "at last I have found / something beyond question and argument more useless than myself. For / you, my friend, are done. I, at any rate, still have life and movement. / I can speak and act; I have a function still to perform in the world; / whereas you are a mockery and a sham."
"Kindly," the clock replied, "refrain from associating me with / yourself. I decline the comparison. Lifeless I may be, but not useless. / For two separate moments every day I am absolutely right, and for some / minutes approximately right; whereas you, sir, are, have been, and / will be, consistently wrong. "