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 coloured pencil I

succeeded in making my first drawing. My Drawing.

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 the

boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it

clearly. They always need to have things explained.

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 wouldbring 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.