XXXV. BOASTING.
82. The Stag and his Horns.
Have you ever seen a stag with its graceful, branching horns?
There is a fable told of a stag who went to a pool to drink, and seeing himself reflected in the water, he said: "Dear me, how beautiful are my horns; what a nice, graceful appearance they give to me! My legs are quite slender, and not at all beautiful, but my horns are handsome." When the hunters came, however, the stag found that his slender legs were very useful, for by means of them he could run away from his enemies, and if it had not been that his horns caught in the branches of a tree and held him fast, he might have escaped.
You see how foolish it was of the stag to boast about his fine horns; and we are just as foolish when we boast of anything that we have, or of anything we can do.
Boasting often leads to untruth, as in ([Story Lesson 11]) "The Three Feathers". It is always vulgar to pretend that we are better than our neighbours, and people who boast generally try to make one believe that they are cleverer or richer or better than somebody else. Let us be like the modest violet, who hides her beauty, rather than be boastful and foolish, as the stag was.
(Blackboard.)
It is Foolish and Vulgar to Boast.