Once when I was siz years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True
Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor
in the act of swallowing an animal. Here is a copy of the drawing.
In the book it said: "Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, wothout chewing it.
Afterthat they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months that they
need for digestion."
I pondered deeply, then, oner the adventures of the jungle. And after some work with a
colored pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing. My Drawing Number One. It looked
like this : I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing
frightened them.
But they answered :"Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat ?"
My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting
an elephant. But since the grown-ups could see it clearly. They alwasy need to have
things explained. My Drawing Number Two looked like this:
The grown-ups' response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of boa
constrictous, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote muself instead to
geography, history, arithmetic and grammar. That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what
might have been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure
of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Mumber Two. Grown-ups never understand anything
by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things
to them.
So then I chose another profession, and learned to pilot airplanes. I have flown a
little over all parts of the world ; and it is true that geography has been very useful
to me. At a glance I can distinguish China from Arizona. If one gets lost in the night,
such knowledge is valuable.
In the course of this life, I have had a great many encounters with a great many people
who have been concerned with matters of consequence. I have lived a great deal among
grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn't much improved my
opinion of them.
Whenever I met one of them who seemed to me at all clear-sighted, I tried the
experiment of shoeing him my Drawing Number One, which I have always kept. I
would try to find out, so, if this was a person of true understanding. But, whoever it
was, he, or she, would always say :
"That is a hat."
Then I would never talk to that person about boa constrictors, or primeval forests,
or stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and
golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met
such a sensible man.