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

It is a delightful pastime to sit in the pleasant sunshine of autumn, and gazing from this little spot of free earth over such a landscape, let the imagination luxuriate amid the thrilling associations of the scene! – H.T. Tuckerman, “San Marino”

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life. The rich colours of grass and earth were intensified by the mellow light of a sun almost warm enough for spring… – P.D. James, A Taste for Death

Such days of autumnal decline hold a strange mystery which adds to the gravity of all our moods. Every step that Time takes imprints upon the fields as they grow bare and brown… – Charles Nodier, Trilby, ou le lutin d’Argail/Trilby: The Fairy of Argyle,