在如许的糊口轨道中，我相逢过许很多多一向在体贴首要事情的人。我有充足多的在大人们中间糊口的经历。我近间隔密切地察看过他们。这些都没有明显进步我对他们的评价。
他们答复我说：“一顶帽子有甚么惊骇的呢？”
每当碰到一个在我看来脑筋略微清楚的大人时，我就拿出随身带着的我那第一号作品来测试他。我想晓得他是否真的有了解才气。但是，不管我测试的人是谁，他或者她都会说：“这是顶帽子。”是以，我也就反面他们谈大蟒蛇啊、原始丛林啊，或者星星之类的事。我会把本身降落到他们的程度，和他们谈些桥牌啊、高尔夫球啊、政治啊、领带啊这些。因而大人们就非常欢畅能熟谙我如许一个通情达理的人。
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.
我想了很多热带丛林的冒险，几经思考，我拿起彩色铅笔终究胜利地完成了我人生中的第一幅绘画。我的第一号作品，它是如许的：
但是，我画的不是一顶帽子，画里代表的是一条蟒蛇正在消化着一头大象。为了让这些大人们能够了解，我只好又画了一张画：我把大蟒蛇肚子里的环境画了出来――这些大人们老是需求解释。我的第二号作品是如许的：
Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about