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Moral Letters Vol II

Seneca

§ Section 14

On Scipio's villa

86:14

Book Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.

Book Description: The second volume of Seneca's moral letters to Lucilius. Each letter contains Seneca's advice and wisdom won from a life of Roman politics.

14.

If what I am saying shall seem to you too pessimistic, charge it up against Scipio’s country-house, where I have learned a lesson from Aegialus, a most careful householder and now the owner of this estate; he taught me that a tree can be transplanted, no matter how far gone in years.

We old men must learn this precept; for there is none of us who is not planting an olive-yard for his successor.

I have seen them bearing fruit in due season after three or four years of unproductiveness.