It was a late-October Sunday, the leaves tinged with brown, and the air crisp in a way that made you shiver if you stood still too long. – Joe Kita, “Growing Old and Staying Young,” Wisdom of Our Fathers, 1999

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

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”

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