"White elephant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... continued. Then we found something advancing towards the tank from the opposite bank. There was a number of cocoanut trees on the bank on the other side, and in the moonlight we could not see clearly what it really was. It looked like a huge white elephant. It approached the tank at a rapid pace—say the pace of a fast trotting horse. From the bank it took a long leap and with a tremendous splash fell into the water. The plunge made the water rise on our side and it rose as ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... encouraging the tourist industry. That the royal prince who is the Minister of Communications recently made a tour of the United States for the purpose of studying American railway methods suggests, however, that the Land of the White Elephant is planning to get its share of tourist travel in ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... to beg permission to wear the Sheriffian Order of the Diamond-eyed Pig of the Second Class. The Sun-Star of the Emerald Life-sized White Elephant of the Double First-Class has already been accepted by Herr VON POPOFF, as that gentleman, being a foreign subject, has no need to desire official authorisation to use his recently-acquired and extremely ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... used to enjoy your visits so much, partly because of the way in which you always talked of Dad. She left you some jewelry that she was fond of, and that colossal old mahogany buffet that you used to rave over whenever you came up. Heaven knows what you'll do with it! It's a white elephant. If you add another story to it, you could rent it out as ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... at the other men, and March said: "You ought to be in charge of a Siamese white elephant, Fulkerson. It's a disgrace to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Harley, and tactfully changed the subject, which evidently was not altogether pleasing to our host. I concluded that he had found the east wing of the house something of a white elephant, and was ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... when he came down to the earth again he had lost all the presents except the pudding, but he had held that all the way down. So he sold it to a man for forty million hundred dollars; and then he was so rich that they made him King of Siam, and he rode on a white elephant with pink ears all the rest ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... itinerary, so vastly different and picturesque are the various regions crossed. But now that gasolene is handed out by the spoonful even to sanitary formations, it would be just as easy for the civilian to procure a white elephant as to dream of purchasing sufficient "gas" to make such ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... to the legend of the safed hâthî or dhaulâ gaj, the white elephant. He is the elephant-headed God Ganesa, and as such is, or rather was formerly, kept by Râjâs as a pet, and fed to surfeit every Tuesday (Mangalwâr) with sweet cakes (chûrîs). After which he was taught to go down on his knees to ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... and had done with Rhodesia. A country with a future is very well in its way; but I am quite Ibsenish in my preference for a country with a past. Oddly enough, I had no difficulty in getting rid of my white elephant of a farm. People seemed to believe in Rhodesia none the less firmly because of this slight disturbance. They treated massacres as necessary incidents in the early history of a colony with a future. And I do not deny that native risings add picturesqueness. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... "Only you can't carry many native chiefs in this boat, not if they insist on bringing their wives and attendants along. Suppose one should insist on appearing before the convention riding in state on the back of a white elephant?" ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... least, came the "White Elephant" with which the reader is already acquainted—the line from Bloemfontein ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet |
