Bel’s and Carissa’s favorite lines
"If for example, you came at four o’clock in the afternoon, then at three o’clock
I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances.
At four o’clock, I shall 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 ready to greet you… One must observe the proper rites…"
"What’s a rite?" asked the little prince.
"Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox.
"they’re what make one day different from other days, one hour different from other hours.
There’s a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they danse with the village girls.
So Thursday’s a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards.
But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day,
and I should never have any vacation at all."
So the little prince tamed the fox.
And when the hour of his departure drew near—
"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
"It’s your own fault," said the little prince.
"I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you…"
"Yes that is so", said the fox.
"But now you’re going to cry!" said the little prince.
"Yes that is so" said the fox.
"Then it has done you no good at all!"
"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields."
And then he added: "go and look again at the roses.
You’ll 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 little prince went away, to look again at the roses.
"You’re not at all like my rose," he said.
"As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one.
You’re like my fox when I first knew him.
He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes.
But I have made a friend, and now he’s unique in all the world."
And the roses were very much embarrassed.
"You’re beautiful, but you’re empty," he went on. "One could not die for you.
To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you
–the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she’s more important
than all the hundreds of you other roses:
because it is she that I have watered;
because it is she that I have put under the glass globe;
because it is for her that I’ve killed the caterpillars
(except the two or three we saved to become butterflies);
because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled,
or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing.
Because she is MY rose."
And he went back to meet the fox.
"Goodbye" he said.
"Goodbye," said the fox.
"And now here’s my secret, a very simple secret:
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye."
"What is essential is invisible to the eye,"
the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."
"It is the time I have wasted for my rose–"
said the little prince so he would be sure to remember.
"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it.
You become 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.
From "The Little Prince" by Antoine de St. Exupery. A most lovely chapter from a most lovely book.
"What, then, do you do after you’ve been tamed, and when you’ve "wasted" so much time on your "rose", and when you hear the wind in the wheatfield and it makes you think of a golden-haired boy…but nobody comes to meet you at 4:00 anymore? What, then?"*
Another boy comes along at 5:00…albeit with dark brown hair.
*From http://blahblahblog.wordpress.com/2006/05/08/the-fox-and-the-little-prince/
