"The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart." (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince)
Today is the quasquicentennial (125th) anniversary of the birth of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince - a book high on the list of my favorites but the only one of his books I've read. I had not realized he also wrote poetry - until today....
Generation To Generation
In a house which becomes a home,
one hands down and another takes up
the heritage of mind and heart,
laughter and tears, musings and deeds.
Love, like a carefully loaded ship,
crosses the gulf between the generations.
Therefore, we do not neglect the ceremonies
of our passage: when we wed, when we die,
and when we are blessed with a child;
When we depart and when we return;
When we plant and when we harvest.
Let us bring up our children. It is not
the place of some official to hand to them
their heritage.
If others impart to our children our knowledge
and ideals, they will lose all of us that is
wordless and full of wonder.
Let us build memories in our children,
lest they drag out joyless lives,
lest they allow treasures to be lost because
they have not been given the keys.
We live, not by things, but by the meanings
of things. It is needful to transmit the passwords
from generation to generation.
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
My first copy of The Little Prince looked like this:
I got it in the 1970's and hope I still have it somewhere though I can't put my hands on it right now. It is, I hope, in one of my boxes of books around here.
In 1993 this 50th anniversary edition of The Little Prince was released and I received a copy of it from my daughter because .....
....it was also the 50th anniversary of my birth.
And now, more than 80 years later, his warning rings truer, and louder, than ever. If you've never read The Little Prince, read it.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
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