Tales From the Secret Annex Part 16

"Oh, Hetty," my neighbor repeated, and then we chatted awhile about this and that, but for the life of me I couldn't make the conversation more interesting. I was expecting the man, who pa.s.sed for interesting in the eyes of the world, to do that.

At the next station the gentleman got out, and I was terribly disappointed.

But then the old woman came out of her comer and started talking to me. She told me things that were so clever and interesting that the time flew and before I knew it I had arrived at my station.

I thanked the interesting little woman and now I know that the reputation of interesting men is based entirely on externals.

If you want to enjoy yourself on a trip or somewhere else, do what I did, try and find old and ugly people. They are much more likely to give you the entertainment you're looking for than gentlemen whose conceit is written ill over their faces.

Why?

The little word "why" has been a very strong thing with me ever since I was a tiny little girl and couldn't even speak properly. It is a well-known fact that little children ask questions about everything because they are unfamiliar with everything. This was very much the case with me, but even when I grew older I couldn't wait to ask all kinds of questions, whether they could be answered or not.

This is not so terrible in itself and I must say that my parents tried to answer everyone of my questions very patiently, until. . . I began even badgering strangers, and they generally can't stand "children's endless questions." I must admit that this can be very tiresome, but I console myself with the idea that there is a saying that "you must ask in order to know," which couldn't be completely true, otherwise I'd be a professor by now.

When I grew older, I realized that it is not possible to ask every kind of question to everyone and that there are many "why's" that cannot be answered. I then followed from that that I tried to help myself by starting to think out these questions on my own. So I came to the important discovery that questions which one mustn't ask can be solved by oneself. Therefore, the little word "why" taught me not only to ask but to think.

Now as to the second part of the word "why." How would it be if everyone who did anything asked himself first, "Why?" I think they would then become more honest and much, much better people. For the best way to become honest and good is to keep examining oneself without stopping. I can imagine that the last thing people like to do is to confess to themselves their faults and their bad side (which everybody has). This is the case with children as well as grown-ups-in that respect I don't see any I difference. Most people think parents should try to educate their children and see to it themselves that their characters develop as well as possible. This is certainly untrue. Children ought to educate themselves from their earliest youth and must try to show real character by themselves. Many will think this is crazy, but it isn't. Even a very small child is a little personality and has a conscience and should be brought up by being treated in this way, so that it will feel that its own conscience is punis.h.i.+ng it in the harshest way possible. When children reach the age of fourteen or fifteen, every punishment is ridiculous. Such a child knows very well that no one, not even its own parents, can get anywhere with punishments and spankings. By arguing reasonably and by showing the child the mistakes it is making, one would get much better results than by strong punishments.

But here, I don't want to sound pedantic, but only to say that in the life of every child and every man, the little word "why" plays a big part, and rightly so. The saying, "You must ask in order to know," is true in so far as it leads to thinking about things, and by thinking n.o.body can ever get worse but will only get better.

Doubleday - Garden City, New York.

(c) 1983 by Doubleday & Co.

(c) 1982 1949, 1960 by Otto Frank.

(c) 1982 by Anne Frank-Fonds, Basel.

English translation (c) 1952 and 1959 by Otto H. Frank.

Originally published in Dutch as Verbaaltjes en Gebeurtenissen uit het Achterhuis beschreven door Anne Frank.

Portions of this book were previously published in The Works of Anne Frank (Doubleday, 1959) and Tales from the House Behind (Bantam, 1959).

Printed in the United States of America.

Scanned 09-2003, ver. 1.0

This e-book is intended for nonprofit educational use only under "fair use" provisions of international copyright conventions and is not to be sold.

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