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 something 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 were not able to understand it, I made another
drawing: I drew the inside of a 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.