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.
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