the little prince.
A few years ago, someone told me to read a story called “the little prince” by the French author Antoine de saint-exupery. I cant remember the significance she thought it would have for my life, but something about my life or personality or journey made her think of the story. I wish I could remember what she said, because last night I saw the book on the shelf at a friend’s house and I asked to borrow it.
Have you heard this story? It’s a wonderful tale about a small boy from a tiny planet no larger than a house. He had 3 volcanoes, 2 active and one extinct. He also owned a flower who he loved dearly but whose pride drove him away from her. He traveled to other planets and ended up in the north African desert for one year. he meets the narrator of the story, and a fox who taught him the secret of what is really important in life.
One day he walks past a rose garden. He feels pain because his flower had told him she was the only rose in the universe. He is overcome with sadness and says to himself, “I thought that I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world; and all I had was a common rose. A common rose, and 3 volcanoes that come up to my knees…that doesn’t make me a very great prince…And he lay down in the grass and cried.”
At his lowest point, lying alone on a foreign planet in the grass, crying, he meets the fox, and I include the chapter I want to share with you below:
It was then that the fox appeared.
“Good morning,” said the fox.
“Good morning,” the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw nothing.
“I am right here,” the voice said, “under the apple tree.”
“who are you?” asked the little prince, and added, “You are very pretty to look at.”
“I am a fox”, the fox said.
“Come and play with me,” proposed the little prince. “I am so unhappy.”
“I cannot play with you,” the fox said. “I am not tamed.”
“Ah! Please excuse me”, said the little prince. But after some thought, he added:
“What does that mean—‘tame’?”
“you do not live here,” said the fox. “What is it that you are looking for?”
“I am looking for men,” said the little prince.” What does that mean—‘tame’?”
“Men,” said the fox. “They have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?”
“No,” said the little prince. “I am looking for friends. What does that mean—‘tame’?”
“It is an act too often neglected,” said the fox. “it means to establish ties…To me, you are nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world…”
“I am beginning to understand,” said the little prince. “There is a flower…I think that she has tamed me…”
“It is possible…my life is very monotonous,” he said. “I hunt chickens, men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the colour of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat…”
The fox gazed at the little prince for a long time. “Please tame me!” he said.
“I want to, very much. But I have not much time. I have friends to discover and a great many things to understand.”
Eventually the fox convinces the little prince to tame him. But the prince doesn’t know how one goes about taming a fox. So he asked what he must do to tame him.
“You must be very patient”, replied the fox. “First you will sit down a little distance from me—like that—in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day…”
the next day the little prince came back.
“It would have been better to come back at the same hour,” said the fox. “If, for example, you came at four in the afternoon, then at three I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o’ clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you…”
So the little prince tamed the fox.
Then the time came for the prince to go, and the fox began to cry. The prince argues that the taming was not worth it, that it did no good at all. The fox argues, “It has done me good, because of the colour of the wheat fields. Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret.”
The prince goes and gives a beautiful monologue ( I want to put it here but I’m lucky if any of you are still reading due to the length of this post). The boy tells the roses why his is most important, because it has been loved and tamed by him and therefore it is unique. He goes back to the fox and the fox tells him a few basic lessons that are so profound.
1.What is essential is invisible to the eye.
2.It is the time the prince wasted for his rose that makes her so important.
3.Men have forgotten this truth, that you are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose.
“I am responsible for my rose,” the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
I so enjoyed reading this story and please go read it for yourself, I say. In such a public domain as the internet, I have learned what I hope is a mark of maturity…not to say too much on here that could be read into, misunderstood, or made into more than it is. So without going into an autobiography of Ashley Lovell, I want to just say that this story is so profound for me today. The fox taught the boy a lesson about his rose, the rose he left behind because she was a difficult rose. And at the end of the story, the boy returned to her with the sole purpose of taking care of her. The fragility of this little prince who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, who ran to another planet looking for happiness again, only to learn from a fox that his happiness lay in his commitment to the rose. It was there, with the rose he had tamed even though it didn’t seem she was “getting it”, that he would find what he was looking all over the universe for.
I sat in the bathtub crying as a turned the last page of this short book. I wanted to be a creator of such quirky and meaningful stories. I wanted my hands to produce such pieces of art. I wanted to tell stories of little princes and proud roses and tamed foxes. I wanted to be drawing pictures of these ideas just as the author of this story did throughout the book. It inspired me, this story of the little prince. I wish I could figure out why, 2 years ago, a woman who hardly knew me, told me she saw me in this story.
I think I’m going to try my hand at a few things:
1. Be the best “tamed rose” that I can be and thankful for what little princes have contributed to that process.
2. Writing the random, and I mean RANDOM, stories that float around in my mind. I need seth and arley for this one. They bring out the randomest parts of me.
3.End this post.
Have you heard this story? It’s a wonderful tale about a small boy from a tiny planet no larger than a house. He had 3 volcanoes, 2 active and one extinct. He also owned a flower who he loved dearly but whose pride drove him away from her. He traveled to other planets and ended up in the north African desert for one year. he meets the narrator of the story, and a fox who taught him the secret of what is really important in life.
One day he walks past a rose garden. He feels pain because his flower had told him she was the only rose in the universe. He is overcome with sadness and says to himself, “I thought that I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world; and all I had was a common rose. A common rose, and 3 volcanoes that come up to my knees…that doesn’t make me a very great prince…And he lay down in the grass and cried.”
At his lowest point, lying alone on a foreign planet in the grass, crying, he meets the fox, and I include the chapter I want to share with you below:
It was then that the fox appeared.
“Good morning,” said the fox.
“Good morning,” the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw nothing.
“I am right here,” the voice said, “under the apple tree.”
“who are you?” asked the little prince, and added, “You are very pretty to look at.”
“I am a fox”, the fox said.
“Come and play with me,” proposed the little prince. “I am so unhappy.”
“I cannot play with you,” the fox said. “I am not tamed.”
“Ah! Please excuse me”, said the little prince. But after some thought, he added:
“What does that mean—‘tame’?”
“you do not live here,” said the fox. “What is it that you are looking for?”
“I am looking for men,” said the little prince.” What does that mean—‘tame’?”
“Men,” said the fox. “They have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?”
“No,” said the little prince. “I am looking for friends. What does that mean—‘tame’?”
“It is an act too often neglected,” said the fox. “it means to establish ties…To me, you are nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world…”
“I am beginning to understand,” said the little prince. “There is a flower…I think that she has tamed me…”
“It is possible…my life is very monotonous,” he said. “I hunt chickens, men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the colour of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat…”
The fox gazed at the little prince for a long time. “Please tame me!” he said.
“I want to, very much. But I have not much time. I have friends to discover and a great many things to understand.”
Eventually the fox convinces the little prince to tame him. But the prince doesn’t know how one goes about taming a fox. So he asked what he must do to tame him.
“You must be very patient”, replied the fox. “First you will sit down a little distance from me—like that—in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day…”
the next day the little prince came back.
“It would have been better to come back at the same hour,” said the fox. “If, for example, you came at four in the afternoon, then at three I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o’ clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you…”
So the little prince tamed the fox.
Then the time came for the prince to go, and the fox began to cry. The prince argues that the taming was not worth it, that it did no good at all. The fox argues, “It has done me good, because of the colour of the wheat fields. Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret.”
The prince goes and gives a beautiful monologue ( I want to put it here but I’m lucky if any of you are still reading due to the length of this post). The boy tells the roses why his is most important, because it has been loved and tamed by him and therefore it is unique. He goes back to the fox and the fox tells him a few basic lessons that are so profound.
1.What is essential is invisible to the eye.
2.It is the time the prince wasted for his rose that makes her so important.
3.Men have forgotten this truth, that you are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose.
“I am responsible for my rose,” the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
I so enjoyed reading this story and please go read it for yourself, I say. In such a public domain as the internet, I have learned what I hope is a mark of maturity…not to say too much on here that could be read into, misunderstood, or made into more than it is. So without going into an autobiography of Ashley Lovell, I want to just say that this story is so profound for me today. The fox taught the boy a lesson about his rose, the rose he left behind because she was a difficult rose. And at the end of the story, the boy returned to her with the sole purpose of taking care of her. The fragility of this little prince who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, who ran to another planet looking for happiness again, only to learn from a fox that his happiness lay in his commitment to the rose. It was there, with the rose he had tamed even though it didn’t seem she was “getting it”, that he would find what he was looking all over the universe for.
I sat in the bathtub crying as a turned the last page of this short book. I wanted to be a creator of such quirky and meaningful stories. I wanted my hands to produce such pieces of art. I wanted to tell stories of little princes and proud roses and tamed foxes. I wanted to be drawing pictures of these ideas just as the author of this story did throughout the book. It inspired me, this story of the little prince. I wish I could figure out why, 2 years ago, a woman who hardly knew me, told me she saw me in this story.
I think I’m going to try my hand at a few things:
1. Be the best “tamed rose” that I can be and thankful for what little princes have contributed to that process.
2. Writing the random, and I mean RANDOM, stories that float around in my mind. I need seth and arley for this one. They bring out the randomest parts of me.
3.End this post.
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