Paul Theroux on Stuff

[from Hotel Honolulu]

The things people accumulated — old pictures and pewter, jade and carved ivory and ugly faced masks and books and tapestries and large yellow sperm-whale teeth scored with scrimshaw, silver platters and spoons and sugar tongs, the incidental and ill-assorted objects that were supposed to have value — all of it was merely borrowed from the vast store of the world’s artifacts and ultimately returned to it, sold, bequeathed, lost, stolen. These objects were protected, and found in another home, another thief or borrower, but in any case just an overburdened custodian, until they were returned again or destroyed. They had no meaning beyond their being handled or looked at.