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mean, avoid them, but be cautious how you engage; 
they very frequently influence a man’s prosperity, 
and oftener his happiness through life. But honey 
is to be gathered from the flowers of poisonous 
plants, with submission to you botanists ;—I repeat 
submission, in every sense; for I delight to think 
you will soon be above the reach of my feeble pen 
in every branch of knowledge, ethics, and moral phi- 
losophy, as well as physic and the belles lettres, and 
I shall be proud of taking from, instead of giving 
lessons to you; so you will not be troubled with so 
much sermonizing; yet probably I may not leave it 
off at once, and ever throw in an observation which 
appears to me may be useful. "Tis an effect of the 
imbecillity of age to hobble in their advice, as in 
their gait; and they fancy people think them wise, 
when they undertake to instruct others ; but nothing 
is more fallacious, and nothing so common, as to 
see an old prating fool, a Polonius, think himself 
an overmatch for Hamlet. 
I have declined the cottage; and as your absence 
makes a greater impression there than any other 
place, and nobody has the taste to take care of it, 
it gives your mother and me too much pain to see 
the spot so neglected as it is, and will be; and those 
plants you used to nurse and view with delight in 
their progress and perfection, those plots you used 
to ornament, vacant, and no hand able to cherish 
them. We cast a mournful eye upon them, and a 
sigh; frequently a pang is excited: thus a gloom 
hangs about us, instead of the former cheerful dis- 
position when we looked with joy on what had 
