Wisdom of the Sands

by
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Spiritual Science
Published by University of Chicago Press/IL in 1979

A Book evie! by Bobby "atherne #$%%$

~^~ 
When I first read this book, apparently I missed reading Walter
alter
Fowlie's wonderful Introduction. Reading introductions,
 prefaces, forewords, and acknowledgments of books is an
acquired taste, similar to eating the crust of bread slices — it's
not for the young. In this passage Fowlie eplains the process of
the book!

[page ix] A young chieftain, un jeune caïd, the protagonist, is

being gradually instructed by his father, who was the
founder of the empire and who is in full control of the
inhabitants. The young caïd is taught to discern which moral
and behaioral factors eleate, and which
w hich degrade the
people. !e learns to recogni"e those aspects of ciili"ation
that strengthen the empire, and those that may cause its
decline.

"traight away on page #, the father's homily to his son begins

with the theme of $pity led astray.$
astray.$ %e talks of how he pitied
 beggars and e&en sent his doctors to heal their sores. hen one
day he $disco&ered that beggars cling to their stench as to
something rare and precious.$

[page #] $or % had caught them scratching away their scabs

and smearing their bodies with dung, li&e the husbandman
who spreads manure oer his garden plot, so as to wean
from it the crimson flower. 'ying with each other, they
flaunted their corruption, and bragged of the alms they
wrung from the tender(hearted. !e who had wheedled most
li&ened himself to a high priest bringing forth from the
shrine his goodliest idol for all to gape at and heap with
offerings. )hen they deigned to consult my physician, it was
in the hope that hugeness and irulence of their can&ers
would astound him. And how nimbly they shuffled their
stumps to hae room made for them in the mar&et places*
Thus they too& the &indness done them for a homage,
proffering their limbs to unctions that flattered their self(
esteem.

If the process of the book is homily, the theme is citadelle — the

home, the fortress, the castle in which we dwell. hat $inner
courtyard$ that we build up around our sel&es, $as the cedar
 builds itself upon the seed.$

[page +#, +] $or % perceied that man-s estate is as a citadel

he may throw down the walls to gain what he calls freedom,
but then nothing of him remains sae a dismantled fortress,
open to the stars. And then begins the anguish of not(being.
$ar better for him were it to achiee his truth in the homely
smell of bla"ing ine shoots, or of the sheep he has to shear.
Truth stri&es deep, li&e a well. A ga"e that wanders loses
sight of /od. And that wise man who, &eeping his thoughts
in hand, &nows little more than the weight of his floc&-s wool
has a clearer ision of /od than [anyone]. 0itadel, % will
build you in men-s hearts.

[page +1] $or % hae lit on a great truth to wit, that all men
dwell, and life-s meaning changes for them with the meaning
of the home.

(nd now we come upon the theme within the theme! the
meaning of things. (ntoine de "aint)*up+ry wrote this entire
 book about the meaning of things. his theme is like sand
flowing through the hourglass of this wonderful book — the
sand of the hourglass has no meaning in itself, the meaning in
us, what meaning we make of the flowing sand. his re&iew of
Citadelle gi&es me a chance to place my hand into the hourglass
of time and allow me to share with you, dear Reader, some
grains of sand that flow through my fingers.

In the story of his father's house, the process of homily, the

citadel in which men dwell, and the meaning of things all come
together with a flourish. he son is led to understand his father's
house as he contemplates its destruction. he son comes to see
the &alue, the meaning, of his father's house, whose walls were
the constraints his father had shaped for the son to come to know
himself. hose walls, which after his father's death, were
doomed — when some dolt came and questioned the meaning of 
things.

[page +2] That is why % hate irony, which is not a man-s

weapon, but the dolt-s. $or the dolt says to us 3These
practices of yours do not obtain elsewhere. 4o why not
change some of them53 As who should say 3)hat obliges
you always to house your harest in the barn and the cattle
in the shed53 6ut it is he who is the dupe of words, for he
&nows not that something which words cannot comprehend.
!e &nows not that men dwell in a house.

(s the story unfolds, one cannot help but remember the -/s
when so many questions were asked about our culture, when so
many young people demonstrated against old traditions, and
when so many beautiful structures were laid in ruins to be
replaced by concrete parking lots and the ilk.

[page +2, +7] And then his ictims, now that the house has
lost its meaning for them, fall to dismantling it. Thus men
destroy their best possession, the meaning of things on feast
days they pride themseles on standing out against old
custom, and betraying their traditions, and toasting their
enemy. True, they may feel some 8ualms as they go about
their deeds of sacrilege. 4o long as there is sacrilege. 4o long
as there still is something against which they reolt. Thus for
a while they continue trading on the fact that their foe still
breathes, and the ghostly presence of the laws still hampers
them enough for them to feel li&e outlaws. 6ut presently the
ery ghost dissoles into thin air, and the rapture of reolt is
gone, een the "est of ictory forgotten. And now they yawn.

[page +7] 9n the ruins of the palace they hae laid out a
public s8uare: but once the pleasure of trampling its stones
with upstart arrogance has lost its "est, they being to wonder
what they are doing here, on this noisy fairground. And now,
lo and behold, they fall to picturing, dimly as yet, a great
house with a thousand doors, with curtains that billow on
your shoulders and slumbrous anterooms. ;erchance they
dream een of a secret room, whose secrecy perades the
whole ast dwelling. Thus, though they &now it not, they are
pining for my father-s palace where eery footstep had a
meaning.

(nd where in that palace is this meaning  to be found0 "urely not

in the bricks, the stones, the tiles that comprise the palace,
 because if the owner were to dismantle the palace
into a pile of brick and stones, $he would not be
able to disco&er therein the silence, the shadows and the pri&acy
they bestowed.$ 1ut rather it is in the heart and soul of the
architect who dreamed of and built the palace. his is the
author's song to the human spirit.

[page <+] %, the architect: %, who hae a heart and soul: %,

who wield the power of transforming stone into silence. %
step in and mold that clay, which is the raw material, into
the li&eness of the creatie ision that comes to me from
/od: and not through any faculty of reason. Thus, ta&en
solely by the saor it will hae, % build my ciili"ation: as
poets build their poems, bending phases to their will and
changing words, without being called upon to =ustify the
phrasing of the changes, but ta&en solely by the saor these
will hae, ouched for by their hearts.

he book theme has mo&ed from the citadel, to the meaning of
things, to the $I$ or human spirit that infuses the world with its
ali&eness and creati&ity. 2ne cannot speak of such things
without soaring thoughts and magniloquent words3 one cannot
speak of such things unless one writes as eloquently as (ntoine
de "aint)*up+ry.

%e speaks of how the breast beam of one's ship groans when the
storm tosses one's ship about and how the *arth itself groans
when an earthquake tosses one's house about! $2nly behold
today how that which should be silent is gi&ing tongue.$ (nd
when the *arth begins to speak, what is it that men are fearful
for0

[page <>] )e trembled, not so much fearing for ourseles as

for all the things we had labored to perfect, things for which
we had been bartering ourseles lifelong. As for me, % was a
carer of metal, and % feared for the great siler ewer on
which % had toiled for years: for whose perfection % had
bartered two years of sleepless nights. Another feared for the
deep(piled carpets he had re=oiced to weae. ?ery day he
unfurled them in the sun: he was proud of haing bartered
somewhat of his gnarled flesh for that rich flood of color,
deep and dierse as the waes of the sea. Another feared for
the olie trees he had planted. 6ut, 4ire, % ma&e bold to say,
not one of us feared death: we all feared for our foolish little
things. )e were discoering that life has a meaning only if
one barters it day by day for something other than itself.
Thus the death of the gardener does no harm to the tree: but
if you threaten the tree the gardener dies twice.

If we follow his line of thought we must come to the conclusion

that whate&er one spends one's life doing, whate&er one barters
one's life for is important in itself for that &ery reason! it is an
in&estment into which we ha&e poured our most precious asset,
our hours.
 [page #@] 4o it is with the ob=ect of the barter: and the fool
who thin&s fit to blame that old woman for her embroidery
  on the pretext that she might hae wrought something
else  out of his own mouth he is conicted of preferring
nothingness to creation.

For (ntoine de "aint)*up+ry there is only lo&e for the

craftsman and disdain for those who surround themsel&es only
with luuries bought from merchants, those who gi&e nothing of 
themsel&es to life.

[page #@] Bo loe hae % for the sluggards, the sedentaries of

the heart: for those who barter nothing of themseles
become nothing. Cife will not hae sered to ripen them. $or
them Time flows li&e a handful of sand and wears them
down.

(s my own parents aged, they were ne&er sedentary3 always

their hands were full of something to do. For my mother it was
knitting booties, sewing quilts, making pine needle baskets,
crocheting centerpieces, or painting the duck decoys my dad
car&ed. For my dad, when he wasn't car&ing his decoys of
upelo 4um wood, he was car&ing up the ground to plant okra,
 potatoes, corn, bell peppers, squash, cucumbers, and tomatoes. I
thought of my dad poring o&er his wood burning tool for hours
as he etched the feathers into the bare wood of his otherwise
finished decoy when I read this passage from this book!

[page ##] % saw, too, my one(legged cobbler busy threading

gold into his leathern slippers and, wea& as was his oice, %
guessed that he was singing. 3)hat is it, cobbler, that ma&es
you so happy53 6ut % heeded not the answer: for % &new that
he would answer me amiss and prattle of money he had
earned, or his meal, or the bed awaiting him  &nowing not
that his happiness came from his transfiguring himself into
golden slippers. . .

(s I read further into this book, I became the caïd , the young
chieftain being instructed by the older chieftain "aint)*up+ry
and his words burned into me like the feathers burning to life
under my own father's wood)burning tool. With each page I
turned, another fiery thought was burned into me.

[page 1<] %f you wish them to be brothers, hae them build a

tower. 6ut if you would hae them hate each other, throw
them corn.

[page D@] )hat you do, you stablish: and that is all. %f when
progressing towards a certain goal, you ma&e(beliee to
moe towards another, only he who is tool of words will
thin& you cleer. )e do not deceie the tree: it grows as we
train it to grow  and all else is words that weae the wind.

[page D#] -Tis the art of reasoning that leads men to ma&e
mista&es.

[page D7] Then your temple will draw them to it li&e a

magnet and in its silence they will search their souls  and
find themseles*

[page 7D] That alone is useful which resists you.

[page 72] . . . the liing tree clutches the earth and molds it
into flowers.
"ome of the lessons the great chieftain ga&e to his son was about
his generals and his police. hese I found most instructi&e and
would like to share them with you. First the generals of his
army!

[page 7@] Thus % made answer to my generals when they

came and tal&ed to me of 39rder,3 but confused the order
wherein power is immanent with the layout of museums. . . .
my generals hold that those things only are in order which
hae ceased to differ from each other. Eid % let them hae
their way, they would 3improe3 those holy boo&s which
reeal an order bodying forth /od-s wisdom, by imposing
order on the letters, as to which the merest child can see they
are mingled with a purpose. Fy generals would put all the
A-s together, all the 6-s and so forth: and thus they would
hae a well(marshalled boo&: a boo& to the taste of generals.

5ears ago I disco&ered that when one holds a question

unanswered in one's mind for a time, sooner or later the answer
rises into consciousness as if it had been there all the time and
needed time for it to arri&e. (nswering such a question
immediately with one's conscious mind substitutes a pale
simulacrum for the true answer that else arri&e later. I epressed
this idea in 6atherne's Rule 789 which says, $What is the power 
of an unanswered question0$ In this net passage I disco&ered
the power of unasking a question or disco&ering that a question
was essentially a meaningless question and not worthy of asking
in the first place.

[page +<7] $or it has been brought home to me that man-s

3progress3 is but a gradual discoery that his 8uestions hae
no meaning. Thus when % consult my learned men, far from
haing found answers to last year-s 8uestions, lo, % see them
smiling contentedly to themseles because the truth has
come to them as the annulment of a 8uestion, not its answer.

We ha&e all argued our positions with others and ha&e usually
found no resolution in the argument, only bad feelings on both
 parts, up until now. he author offers us this worthy ad&ice.

[page +#>] Thus % would hae you refrain from wranglings

  which lead nowhere. )hen others re=ect your truths on
the strength of facts aerred by them, remind yourself that
you, too, on the strength of facts aerred by you, re=ect their
truths, when you fall to wrangling with them. Gather, accept
them. Ta&e them by the hand and guide them. 4ay, 3Hou are
right, yet let us climb the mountain together.3 Then you
maintain order in the world and they will draw deep breaths
of eager air, loo&ing down on the plain which they, too, hae
con8uered.

[page +1<] 0onfuse not loe with the raptures of possession,

which bring the cruellest of sufferings. $or, notwithstanding
the general opinion, loe does not cause suffering what
causes it is the sense of ownership, which is loe-s opposite.

[page +1] Then ta&e today as it is gien you, and chafe not
against the irreparable. 3%rreparable3 indeed means
nothing: it is but the epithet of all that is bygone. And since
no goal is eer attained, no cycle eer completed, no epoch
eer ended Isae for the historian, who inents these
diisions for your conenienceJ, how dare you affirm that
any steps you hae ta&en which hae not yet reached, and
neer will reach, their consummation, are to be regretted5
 $or the meaning of things lies not in goods that hae been
amassed and stored away  which the sedentaries consume
  but in the heat and stress of transformation, of pressing
forward, and of yearnings unassuaged.

[page +>+] $or you can only gie what you transform, as the
tree gies the fruits of the earth which it has transformed.
The dancer gies the dance into which she has transformed
her wal&ing steps.

he last story is about the chieftain's police officers, who $in
their lush stupidity$ ha&e confronted him and insisted that they
ha&e disco&ered a sect responsible for the downfall of the
empire. "o the chieftain asked them, $(nd how do you know
that these men are working in concert0$

[page ##@] Then they told me of certain signs they had

noticed, showing that these men formed a secret society, and
of certain coincidences in the things they did, een naming
the place where they held their meetings.

When the chieftain asked how this secret society was a danger to
the empire, they told him of their crimes, rapes, ignobility, and
their repellant appearance. he chieftain did not dispute their
claim of a dangerous secret society, instead he followed the
ad&ice gi&en abo&e in the quotation from page # and in&ited
them to climb the mountain together.

[page ##+] 3)ell,3 % said, 3% &now a secret society that is still

more dangerous, for no one has eer thought of fighting
against it.3

3)hat is it, 4ire53

And now they were agog with eagerness: for the police
officer, being born to use his fists, wilts if there be none on
whom to ply them.

3The secret society,3 % answered, 3of those men who hae a

mole on the left temple.3

(s his policemen protested that they had seen no signs of such

meetings, the chieftain claimed that made them all the more
dangerous. 1ut as soon as he will denounce them in public, they
will be seen banding together. hen a former carpenter coughed
and spoke up saying he knew a man who had a mole on his left
temple who was $honest, gentle, open)hearted$ and was
wounded defending the empire. he chieftain said they should
waste no time on eceptions.

[page ##<] 9nce all the men who bear that mar& hae been
traced out, loo& into their past. Hou will find they hae been
concerned in all manner of crimes from rapes and
&idnappings to embe""lement and treason, and public acts of 
indecency  not to mention their minor ices such as
gluttony. Eare you tell me they are innocent of such things53

he policemen shook their fists in anger and cried, $:o, no;$
1ut the carpenter spoke up and questioned what if one's father,
 brother or kin had a mole on the left temple. he chieftain's
anger rose once more.

[page ##<] 3Fore dangerous still is the -sect- of those who

hae a mole on the right temple. And, in our innocense, we
neer gae them a thought* )hich means they hide
themseles yet more cunningly. Fost dangerous of all is the
-sect- of those who hae no mole on their faces, for clearly
such men disguise themseles, li&e foul conspirators, so as to
do their eil wor& unnoticed. 4o, when all is said and done, %
can but condemn the whole human race  since there is no
denying that it is the source of all manner of crimes: rapes
and &idnappings, embe""lement and treason and public acts
of indecency. And inasmuch as my police officers, besides
being police officers, are men, % will begin my purge with
them, since -purges- of this sort are their function. Therefore
% order the policeman who is in each of you to lay hold of the
man who is in each of you, and fling him into the most
noisome dugeon of my citadel.3

(s the policemen were going out, the chieftain asked the

carpenter to stay and dismissed him from his police, saying that
$the carpenter's truth . . . is no truth for police officers.$

[page ###] 3%f the code sets a blac& mar& against those who
hae a mole on the bac& of the nec&, it is my pleasure that
my police officers, at the mere mention of such a man, feel
their fists clenching. And it is li&ewise my pleasure that your
sergeant ma=or weighs your merits by your s&ill in doing an
about turn. $or had he the right to =udge for himself he
might condone your aw&wardness because you are a great
poet. And li&ewise forgie the man beside you, because he is
a paragon of irtue. And li&ewise with the man next after
him, because he is a model of chastity. Thus =ustice would
preail. 6ut now suppose that, on the battlefield, a swift and
subtle feint, hinging on an about turn, is called for, then you
will see my troops blundering into each other, hugger(
mugger, and the enemy profiting by their confusion to wipe
them out* And much consolation will it be to the dying that
their sergeant ma=or thin&s well of them* Therefore % send
you bac& to your boards and plan&s, lest your loe of =ustice,
operating where it is misplaced, lead one day to a useless
shedding of blood.3

In a nutshell, in the police or the army you gotta ha&e men about
you that are good at doing about faces.

We ha&e learned in this booklong homily about pitying a beggar,

about tearing down a palace, about how places ha&e meaning,
and about the meaning of things. hese things we learned as the
sands of wisdom poured through the hourglass of this book.
When the last grain of sand flowed past the neck of the
hourglass, the chieftain closed his homily to his son thus! $his
morning I ha&e pruned my rose trees.$