Around and around the house the leaves fall thick—but never fast, for they come circling down with a dead lightness that is sombre and slow. Let the gardener sweep and sweep the turf as he will, and press the leaves into full barrows, and wheel them off, still they lie ankle-deep. – Charles Dickens, Bleak House

It is about five o’clock in an evening that the first hour of spring strikes — autumn arrives in the early morning, but spring at the close of a winter day. – Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart