Chapter 1
Once when I was six 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, without chewing it. After
that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months that they need
for digestion.”
I pondered deeply, then, over 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 anyone 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 were not able to understand it, I made another
drawing: I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it
clearly. They always 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
constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself 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 Number 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 showing 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.