Jerome K. Jerome 
Clocks 

(Excerpt): "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… 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."