Wisdom of the Sands

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