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Here Was One
No. 19
Grant Hodges
November 06, 2023
The Little Prince
Dear Reader,
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944) was a French aristocrat, pilot, journalist, and author. One of the most colorful individuals in the history of European letters, Saint-Exupéry published nine books between 1926 and his death in 1944, all while pursuing a career as a pioneering aviator and flying reconnaissance missions for France during World War II.
Today, he is best known as the author of the children’s book, The Little Prince, which is the subject of this week’s newsletter.
Background
First published in 1943, The Little Prince is the story of a pilot who crashes in the Sahara desert and meets a young prince, who has traveled to Earth from his home on a tiny asteroid. Over the course of eight days, while trying to repair the plane, the pilot befriends the prince, who tells the pilot about his life on the asteroid and his travels to various planets.
The book has been translated into over 500 languages (second only to the Bible) and has sold over 140 million copies. One of its most moving anecdotes is about the prince falling in love with and caring for a rose on his asteroid, before he leaves to travel the solar system. The rose is the only flower on the asteroid, and when the prince lands on Earth, he finds several rosebushes and realizes that—far from being unique and perfect—his rose is just one of many. He is initially heartbroken, but a fox appears, who asks the little prince to tame him so they can be friends. The little prince obliges, and, when the time comes for him to move on, the fox encourages him to go back and look at the rosebushes again…
From The Little Prince
By Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The little prince went to look at the roses again.
“You’re not at all like my rose. You’re nothing at all yet,” he told them. “No one has tamed you and you haven’t tamed anyone. You’re the way my fox was. He was just a fox like a hundred thousand others. But I’ve made him my friend, and now he’s the only fox in all the world.”
And the roses were humbled.
“You’re lovely, but you’re empty,” he went on. “One couldn’t die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she’s the one I’ve watered. Since she’s the one I put under glass. Since she’s the one I sheltered behind a screen. Since she’s the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three for butterflies). Since she’s the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she’s my rose.
And he went back to the fox.
“Good-bye,” he said.
“Good-bye,” said the fox. “Here is my secret. It’s quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”
“Anything essential is invisible to the eyes,” the little prince repeated, in order to remember.
“It’s the time you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important.”
“It’s the time I spent on my rose . . . ,” the little prince repeated, in order to remember.
“People have forgotten this truth,” the fox said. “But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose . . . “
“I’m responsible for my rose . . . ,” the little prince repeated, in order to remember.
What It Offers
There’s so much to love about The Little Prince, but one thing that I really appreciate is how deeply strange of a book it is. With references to Saint-Exupéry’s own experience crash-landing in the Libyan desert while trying to break an air-speed record, the story is part memoir, part fable, part satire, part fantasy, and part philosophy.
I find this weird combination particularly moving. As the excerpt above demonstrates, the little prince and his friends (like the fox) have a way of distilling difficult concepts to their simplest terms. I don’t know if there’s a better answer to the question of how we should live than the fox’s statements to the prince. After all, regardless of what we choose to pursue, nothing we do will seem significant or important or unique, unless we place the value in the process itself, which is of course invisible and which it seems we are constantly urged to detach ourselves from.
The fox reminds us that there’s a reason we prefer real roses over plastic ones. There’s a reason we create art or play sports or make music without any thought as to why we do it. There’s a reason why we cook, even when we can get the same food (probably better) at a restaurant. The processes create meaning and require that we engage with the world in a deeper way, beyond mere sensory experience, so we can see the “essential” through our hearts.
*****
What is the meaning of life? That was all—a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.