Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, calledTrue Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boaconstrictor 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, withoutchewing it. After that they are not able to move, and they sleep through thesix months that they need for digestion."

I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after somework with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing. MyDrawing Number One. It looked like this:

I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether thedrawing 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 constrictordigesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understandit, I made another drawing: I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so thatthe grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have thingsexplained. My Drawing Number Two looked like this:

The grown-ups' response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside mydrawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, anddevote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic and grammar. Thatis why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificentcareer as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my DrawingNumber One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understandanything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always andforever explaining things to them

So then I chose another profession, and learned to pilot airplanes. I haveflown a little over all parts of the world; and it is true that geography hasbeen very useful to me. At a glance I can distinguish China from Arizona. Ifone gets lost in the night, such knowledge is valuable.

In the course of this life I have had a great many encounters with a greatmany people who have been concerned with matters of consequence. I havelived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close athand. 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 triedthe experiment of showing him my Drawing Number One, which I havealways kept. I would try to find out, so, if this was a person of trueunderstanding. 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 primevalforests, or stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to himabout bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up wouldbe greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man.