THE STAG LOOKING INTO THE WATER.
A Stag drinking, saw himself in the water, and pleased with the sight, stood contemplating his shape. Ah, says he, what a glorious pair of branching horns are here, how gracefully do these antlers project over my forehead, and give an agreeable turn to my whole face; but I have such legs as really make me ashamed; they look so very long and unsightly, that I had rather have none at all. In the midst of this soliloquy, he was alarmed with the cry of a pack of hounds. Away he flies in some consternation, and bounding nimbly over the plain, threw dogs and men at a vast distance behind him. After which, taking a very thick copse, he had the ill fortune to be entangled by his horns in the branches, where he was held fast till the hounds came up and seized him. In the pangs of death, he is said to have uttered these words: Unhappy creature that I am, I am too late convinced that what I prided myself in, has been the cause of my undoing; and what I so much disliked, was the only thing that could have saved me.
APPLICATION.
We often make a false estimate, in preferring our ornamental talents to our useful ones, and are apt to place our love and admiration on wrong objects. When our vanity is stronger than our reason, show and ostentation find easy admission into our hearts, and we are much fonder of specious trifles than useful plainness. But the truest mark of wisdom is to estimate things at their just value, and to know whence the most solid advantages may be derived: otherwise, like the Stag in the Fable, we may happen to admire those accomplishments which are not only of no real use, but often prove prejudicial to us, while we despise those things on which our safety may depend. He that does not know himself, will often form a false judgment upon other matters that most materially concern him; and thus it fares with many, who suffer themselves to be deluded with the false pomp of high life, and whose vanity prompts them to conceive they possess talents which qualify them to shine in that circle, into which, had they judged rightly, they never would have entered, but rather have applied themselves to improve other qualifications, which might have insured their own happiness, and have rendered them useful members of society.