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,

And in my heart, sweet Autumn, thou art the awakener of many, many things. At thy touch the deep fountain of memory is stirred, and its shadowy bank is thronged with many cherished images and hallowed recollections of the Past! – Elizabeth J. Eames, “An Autumn Reverie,” October 1840

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