I am struck by the simplicity of light in the atmosphere in the autumn, as if the earth absorbed none, and out of this profusion of dazzling light came the autumnal tints. – Henry David Thoreau, Oct. 12, 1852

I cannot write of things which even impassioned breath cannot utter. Autumn is coming with its days of gold, its days of reverie and of you—oh, such delightful hours that my heart burns within me at the anticipation. – Byron Caldwell Smith, letter to Kate Stephens

A beauty lights the fading year… – Phebe A. Holder, “A Song of October,” in The Queries Magazine, October 1890

The bright summer had passed away, and gorgeous autumn was flinging its rainbow-tints of beauty on hill and dale. – Cornelia L. Tuthill, “Virginia Dare: Or, the Colony of Roanoke,” 1840