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.