"The stars are beautiful,because of a flower that cannot be seen."

 I replied, "Yes, that is so." And, without saying anything more, I looked across the ridges of sand that were stretched out before us in the moonlight.

 "The desert is beautiful," the liittle prince added.

 And that was true. I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams...

 "What makes the desert beautiful,"said the little prince, "is that somewhere it hides a well..."

 I was astonished by a sudden understanding of that mysterious radiation of the sand.When I was a little boy I lived in an old house, and legend told us that a treasure was buried there. To be sure, no one had ever known how to find it; perhaps no one had ever even looked for it. But it cast an enchantment over that house. My home was hiding a secret in the depths of its heart...

 "Yes,"I said to the little prince. "The house, the stars, the desert -what gives them their beautiful is something that is invisible!"