Opening Saint Exupery’s Box
Caleb Stegall on Cloning & the Knowledge of Man
Antoine de Saint Exupery’s The Little Prince is one of the twentieth century’s best-loved stories. It is a fable about the secret of happiness. The Little Prince begins when a fictional Saint Exupery crashes his airplane into the Sahara Desert and encounters a most unlikely interplanetary visitor—a boy, the Little Prince. The boy is a traveler from a tiny planet no bigger than a house where he has lived alone with his fabulous possessions. But pride in those possessions has driven the Little Prince on his stellar journey and landed him in the middle of the Sahara.
The boy immediately, but politely, demands of Saint Exupery, “If you please, draw me a sheep.” Saint Exupery, taken a bit aback, begins to draw—to great cries of disapproval from the Little Prince. Saint Exupery’s sheep simply does not capture the essence of sheepness. Finally, in frustration, Saint Exupery draws a square box and explains to the Little Prince that the sheep lives inside the box.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Caleb Stegall is a lawyer and writer in Perry, Kansas. His forthcoming book on the history of prairie populism and the future of American regionalism is due out from ISI Books in 2009. He and his wife Ann have five boys and attend Grace Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Lawrence, Kansas, where Stegall serves as a ruling elder.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
36.4—Jul/Aug 2023
Our Political Void & the Disintegration of Truth by Michael Hanby
32.5—September/October 2019
on the Inhuman Transformation of Transgenderism by Anthony Esolen
28.3—May/June 2015
Whittaker Chambers's Lonely War Against Godless Collectivism by Hunter Baker
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
