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The Little PrinceHome > Literature > Antoine de Saint-Exupery > The Little Prince(1943) by Antoine de Saint-Exupery I do not much like to take the tone of a moralist. But the danger of the baobabs is so little understood, and such considerable risks would be run by anyone who might get lost on an asteroid, that for once I am breaking through my reserve. "Children," I say plainly, "watch out for the baobabs!" Now there were some terrible seeds on the planet that was the home of the little prince; and these were the seeds of the baobab. The soil of that planet was infested with them. A baobab is something you will never, never be able to get rid of if you attend to it too late. It spreads over the entire planet. It bores clear through it with its roots. And if the planet is too small, and the baobabs are too many, they split it in pieces... Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. They never say to you, "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?" Instead, they demand "How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?" Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him. I did not know what to say to him. I felt awkward and blundering. I did not know how I could reach him, where I could overtake him and go on hand in hand with him once more. I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn't much improved my opinion of them. When a mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey. The proof that the little prince existed is that he laughed, and that the was looking for a sheep. If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists. Children, I say plainly, "watch out for the baobabs!" You know - one loves the sunset, when one is so sad... If some one loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows in all the millions and millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars. He can say to himself: 'Somewhere, my flower is there...' But if the sheep eats the flower, in one moment all his stars will be darkened...And you think that is not important! It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye. What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well. |
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