Just as a painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so I need an inner light, which I feel I never have enough of in the autumn. – Leo Tolstoy, to Nikolay Strakhov

[O]n hill and valley and stream, is lain the spell of silence; and the deep stillness of the air is unbroken… – Elizabeth J. Eames, “An Autumn Reverie,” October 1840

The Sussex lanes were very lovely in the autumn. I started going for long lone country walks among the spendthrift gold and glory of the year-end, giving myself up to the earth-scents and the sky-winds and all the magic of the countryside which is ordained for the healing of the soul. – Monica Baldwin, I Leap Over the Wall: Contrasts and Impressions After Twenty-Eig