20 
House & 
Garden 
O N 
KEEPING WHITE ELEPHANTS 
} ou May Give These Domestic Pachyderms Away, You May 
Secrete Them in Attics Until They Become Fashionable Again, 
But the Best Scheme of All Is to Make Them Change Their Hides 
O NE knows of plenty of virtuous houses with no skeletons in their 
cupboards, plenty of new ones with no mice in the attic or black 
beetles in the basement; but it is difficult to think of a single one 
that does not suffer, more or less, from a plague of white elephants. 
Offered a choice between black beetles and white elephants, a wise 
man will choose black beetles as the lesser evil. For black beetles can 
be got rid of; a few ounces of boracic powder will do the trick. But 
for clearing a house of white elephants, there is no dependable remedy. 
It is all very well to say “Throw the old things out of the window,” 
or “Call in the junk man,” or “Give them to the Salvation Army.” 
Few white elephants will allow themselves to be dismissed as easily as 
that. They attach themselves to their homes by links which, being 
more than merely physical, cannot be broken by merely physical means. 
A white elephant only becomes really white and truly elephantine when 
reasons of sentiment make it utterly impossible to drive it away. 
T HERE are many species of elephants. There is, for example, 
that class of elephant which has been in the family for generations, 
and which cannot be parted with without what almost amounts 
to a breach of faith with one’s forebears. Who does not know that im¬ 
possible furniture that belonged to a grandmother, those hideous tables 
fraught with precious associations, those dismal brown portraits by no¬ 
body in particular which one has not the heart to sell ? 
Then there are the white elephants which one has acquired oneself 
in moments of mistaken zeal or at a time when one’s taste was different. 
These, too, it is hard to get rid of, partly because of old association, 
partly out of a foolish pride which does not admit itself mistaken. 
Those first enthusiasms are rather dangerous. You stroll into an 
auction room, and your eye lights on something that seems particularly 
amusing or charming in the confused mass of things to be sold. You 
are attracted, you bid, and in the excitement of competition you become 
more and more firmly convinced of the beauty and value of the object 
for which you are bidding. 
Finally, flushed with victory, you carry home with you an object 
which proves to be not only useless, but out of harmony with the rest 
of your possessions, and which duly takes its place with the other white 
elephants of your domain. 
Then there is that third type—the present from a friend. Doubtless 
there was not a household in the land that on Christmas morning did 
not see some domestic white elephant led out from its paper wrappings 
and installed among the household effects. This type is just as diffi¬ 
cult to get rid of, at any rate for a considerable period, varying in direct 
ratio with the retentiveness of the friend’s memory. Such white ele¬ 
phants are the worst of all. They begin with a place of prominence in 
the house and, by gradual steps, descend into the utter darkness of the 
junk heap. Someone ought to do a set of plates after the manner of 
Hogarth showing “The White Elephant’s Progress.” 
N OW there are many things that can be done with white elephants, 
and in this day of thrift (sometime in January, by the way, we 
are starting a Thrift Week) it is well to consider them. 
You can, if you are heartless, visit them upon newly-married nieces 
and nephews. Their blood will be on your head, and rightly so. 
Or, if you have an ample attic, you can quietly lead these white ele¬ 
phants up there and hide them away. It is strange what time will do 
to hidden white elephants. About ten years ago there was held in New 
York an Exhibition of Bad Taste, and the whole town chuckled over the 
clever idea of the organizers and laughed uproariously at the exhibits. 
Today some of those very things that were held up to scorn are being 
used by “smart” decorators. This in one short decade! Of course, 
monstrosities always remain monstrosities. It is difficult for that sort 
of white elephant to change his hide, but popular taste changes and if 
you will only live long enough, some of the domestic white elephants 
may come in fashion again. 
A third solution, and this we offer as our contribution toward Thrift 
Week, is to look the white elephant directly in the teeth and convince 
yourself that, sentiment to the contrary, it no longer is going to be either 
white or an elephant. Take the chisel firmly in hand, mix the paint, 
and when you have stripped off its decorations and varnish, reduced it, 
in fact, to the mere shadow of its former self, then you can begin and 
make of it something worth while, something that will fit in harmoni¬ 
ously with your other furnishings. This will require ingenuity and no 
little skill with tools and a paint brush, but it is the easiest solution 
of the situation. 
T HERE are many worse hobbies a man might have than carpentry. 
It keeps him home, it keeps him amused, will give him something 
to do on Blue Sundays, and eventually may save him money. 
One always reads, in the romantic stories of collecting, how broken- 
down and impossible pieces of furniture were sent to a dear old cabinet¬ 
maker who, for a mere song, made the old things over into something 
new and glorious. That race of cabinet-makers and country carpenters 
died out a long, long time ago. Today they work on the cost-plus basis 
and can't be bothered with old furniture. Consequently the household 
which is endowed with domestic white elephants of undesirable charac¬ 
ter is obliged to turn to itself and make them desirable. 
If they can’t be given away, destroy them, destroy them ruthlessly. 
But if they show promise under their white hides, then set to work and 
make the most of that promise. The process may take time and the 
householder show the amateur touch at first, but eventually, if the 
hobby is persisted in, it will prove an interesting and profitable diver¬ 
sion. And there is always the camp or the summer cottage to which 
such pieces may be consigned when they are finished, places where 
they will look perfectly at home and can serve out the remainder of 
their immortal years. 
