Tell Me A Story: AUTUMN

Marcia Norwood
America's STORYTELLER
Telling Untold Stories in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking

Autumn

The season between summer and winter.

Fall.

In the Northern Hemisphere: From September equinox to the December solstice.

In the Southern Hemisphere: From the March equinox to the June solstice.

"I cannot endure to waste anything so precious

as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.

So I have spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air."

Nathaniel Hawthorne, 10th October 1842

(1804-1864)

American Novelist and Short Story Writer

Letter to Miss Lewis, 1st October 1841

George Eliot

"Is not this a true autumn day?
Just the still melancholy that I love —
       that makes life and nature harmonize.
The birds are consulting about their migrations,
     the trees are putting on the hectic
        or the pallid hues of decay,
           and begin to strew the ground,
              that one's very footsteps may not disturb
                 the repose of earth and air,
                    while they give us a scent
                        that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit...

...Delicious autumn!

My very soul is wedded to it,
and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth
seeking the successive autumns."

George Eliot, Letter to Miss Lewis, 1st October 1841

George Eliot (Pseudonym of Mary Anne or Marian Evans)

(1819-1841)

English Author

"Autumn burned brightly,

a running flame through the mountains,

a torch flung to the trees."

Faith Baldwin, American Family

(1893-1978)

Successful U.S. Author of romance and fiction,

published some 100 novels.

"The Falling Leaves," Under the Maples

John Burroughs

"The time of the falling leaves has come again. Once more in our morning walk we tread upon carpets of gold and crimson, of brown and bronze, woven by the winds or the rains out of these delicate textures while we slept."

"How beautifully the leaves grow old! How full of light and color are their last days! There are exceptions, of course. The leaves of most of the fruit-trees fade and wither and fall ingloriously. They bequeath their heritage of color to their fruit. Upon it they lavish the hues which other trees lavish upon their leaves...."

"But in October what a feast to the eye our woods and groves present! The whole body of the air seems enriched by their calm, slow radiance. They are giving back the light they have been absorbing from the sun all summer."