Loveliness Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, But is when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most.
For his bounty, There was no winter in 't; an autumn 't was That grew the more by reaping.
No autumn fruit without spring blossoms.
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, / Tears from the depth of some divine despair / Rise in the heart and gather in the eyes, / In looking on the happy autumn fields, / And thinking of the days that are no more.
It gives me strength to have somebody to fight for; I can never fight for myself, but, for others, I can kill.
Women were far more fragile, and if there was one thing Michael could not bear, it was a woman’s tears. Seeing the telltale rim of moisture pooling at the bottom of a woman’s eyes was all it took to make him helpless. When a woman’s voice wobbled with impending tears, all his extravagant strength and courage collapsed like a withered leaf in a gust of autumn wind.
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean. Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the ground, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
The dews of the evening most carefully shun,-- Those tears of the sky for the loss of the sun.
The direct loss to France caused by the Pébrine in seventeen years cannot be estimated at less than fifty millions sterling; and if we add to this what Redi's idea, in Pasteur's hands, has done for the wine-grower and for the vinegar-maker; and try to capitalise its value, we shall find that it will go a long way towards repairing; the money losses caused by the frightful and calamitous war of this autumn (1870). And as to the equivalent of Redi's thought in life, how can we overestimate the value of that knowledge of the nature of epidemic and epizootic diseases, and consequently of the means of checking, or eradicating them, the dawn of which has assuredly commenced?
Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD: The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
We are reformers in spring and summer; in autumn and winter we stand by the old; reformers in the morning, conservers at night.
He saw her charming, but he saw not half The charms her downcast modesty conceal'd.
For his bounty, / There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas, / That grew the more by reaping.
The Sabbath is the savings-bank of human life, into which we deposit one day in seven to be repaid in the autumn of life with compound interest.--_Selected._
One chilly autumn evening, he was reminded of the painter by a stalk of corn: the way it stood there armed in its rough coat of leaves, exposing its delicate roots atop the mounded earth like so many nerves, it was also a portrait of his own most vulnerable self. The discovery only served to increase his melancholy.
~Autumn.~--Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness.--_Keats._
~Reform.~--We are reformers in spring and summer; in autumn and winter we stand by the old--reformers in the morning, conservatives at night. Reform is affirmative, conservatism is negative; conservatism goes for comfort, reform for truth.--_Emerson._
In the season of white wild roses We two went hand in hand: But now in the ruddy autumn Together already we stand.
I trust in Nature for the stable laws Of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant And Autumn garner to the end of time. I trust in God,--the right shall be the right And other than the wrong, while he endures. I trust in my own soul, that can perceive The outward and the inward,--Nature's good And God's.
Unless a tree has borne blossoms in spring, you will vainly look for fruit on it in autumn.
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.
The internal heat of the earth, the elevation and depression of its crust, its belchings forth of vapours, ashes, and lava, are its activities, in as strict a sense as are warmth and the movements and products of respiration the activities of an animal. The phenomena of the seasons, of the trade winds, of the Gulf-stream, are as much the results of the reaction between these inner activities and outward forces as are the budding of the leaves in spring and their falling in autumn the effects of the interaction between the organisation of a plant and the solar light and heat. And, as the study of the activities of the living being is called its physiology, so are these phenomena the subject-matter of an analogous telluric physiology, to which we sometimes give the name of meteorology, sometimes that of physical geography, sometimes that of geology. Again, the earth has a place in space and in time, and relations to other bodies in both these respects, which constitute its distribution. This subject is usually left to the astronomer; but a knowledge of its broad outlines seems to me to be an essential constituent of the stock of geological ideas.
For still the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh, Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn.
THE OCTOBER COUNTRY … that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coalbins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain…
Cut out the love of self, like an autumn lotus, with thy hand.
unfathomable to the most experienced prophets in Maycomb County, autumn turned to winter that year. We had two weeks of the coldest weather since 1885, Atticus said. Mr. Avery said it was written on the Rosetta Stone that when children disobeyed their parents, smoked cigarettes and made war on each other, the seasons would change: Jem and I were burdened with the guilt of contributing to the aberrations of nature, thereby causing unhappiness to our neighbors and discomfort to ourselves.
Of no distemper, of no blast he died, But fell like autumn fruit that mellow'd long,-- Even wonder'd at, because he dropp'd no sooner. Fate seem'd to wind him up for fourscore years, Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more; Till like a clock worn out with eating time, The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
Even in the moment of our earliest kiss, When sighed the straitened bud into the flower, Sat the dry seed of most unwelcome this; And that I knew, though not the day and hour. Too season-wise am I, being country-bred, To tilt at autumn or defy the frost: Snuffing the chill even as my fathers did, I say with them, "What's out tonight is lost." I only hoped, with the mild hope of all Who watch the leaf take shape upon the tree, A fairer summer and a later fall Than in these parts a man is apt to see, And sunny clusters ripened for the wine: I tell you this across the blackened vine. -- Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Even in the Moment of Our Earliest Kiss", 1931
The smiling Spring comes in rejoicing, And surly Winter grimly flies. Now crystal clear are the falling waters, And bonnie blue are the sunny skies. Fresh o'er the mountains breaks forth the morning, The ev'ning gilds the oceans's swell: All creatures joy in the sun's returning, And I rejoice in my bonnie Bell. The flowery Spring leads sunny Summer, The yellow Autumn presses near; Then in his turn come gloomy Winter, Till smiling Spring again appear. Thus seasons dancing, life advancing, Old Time and Nature their changes tell; But never ranging, still unchanging, I adore my bonnie Bell. -- Robert Burns, "My Bonnie Bell"
Leslie West heads for the sticks, to Providence, Rhode Island and tries to hide behind a beard. No good. There are still too many people and too many stares, always taunting, always smirking. He moves to the outskirts of town. He finds a place to live -- huge mansion, dirt cheap, caretaker included. He plugs in his guitar and plays as loud as he wants, day and night, and there's no one to laugh or boo or even look bored. Nobody's cut the grass in months. What's happened to that caretaker? What neighborhood people there are start to talk, and what kids there are start to get curious. A 13 year-old blond with an angelic face misses supper. Before the summer's end, four more teenagers have disappeared. The senior class president, Barnard-bound come autumn, tells Mom she's going out to a movie one night and stays out. The town's up in arms, but just before the police take action, the kids turn up. They've found a purpose. They go home for their stuff and tell the folks not to worry but they'll be going now. They're in a band. -- Ira Kaplan
It seemed that all these men, now that they had stopped amid fields in the chill dusk of the autumn evening, experienced one and the same feeling of unpleasant awakening from the hurry and eagerness to push on that had seized them at the start. Once at a standstill they all seemed to understand that they did not yet know where they were going, and that much that was painful and difficult awaited them on this journey.
1:12. These are spots in their banquets, feasting together without fear, feeding themselves: clouds without water, which are carried about by winds: trees of the autumn, unfruitful, twice dead, plucked up by the roots:
Thus far thy toils are finish'd. Now attend! Mark well my words, of which the Gods will sure Themselves remind thee in the needful hour. First shalt thou reach the Sirens; they the hearts Enchant of all who on their coast arrive. The wretch, who unforewarn'd approaching, hears The Sirens' voice, his wife and little-ones Ne'er fly to gratulate his glad return, But him the Sirens sitting in the meads Charm with mellifluous song, while all around The bones accumulated lie of men Now putrid, and the skins mould'ring away. But, pass them thou, and, lest thy people hear Those warblings, ere thou yet approach, fill all Their ears with wax moulded between thy palms; But as for thee--thou hear them if thou wilt. Yet let thy people bind thee to the mast Erect, encompassing thy feet and arms With cordage well-secured to the mast-foot, So shalt thou, raptur'd, hear the Sirens' song. But if thou supplicate to be released, Or give such order, then, with added cords Let thy companions bind thee still the more. When thus thy people shall have safely pass'd The Sirens by, think not from me to learn What course thou next shalt steer; two will occur; Delib'rate chuse; I shall describe them both. Here vaulted rocks impend, dash'd by the waves Immense of Amphitrite azure-eyed; The blessed Gods those rocks, Erratic, call. Birds cannot pass them safe; no, not the doves Which his ambrosia bear to Father Jove, But even of those doves the slipp'ry rock Proves fatal still to one, for which the God Supplies another, lest the number fail. No ship, what ship soever there arrives, Escapes them, but both mariners and planks Whelm'd under billows of the Deep, or, caught By fiery tempests, sudden disappear. Those rocks the billow-cleaving bark alone The Argo, further'd by the vows of all, Pass'd safely, sailing from Ææta's isle; Nor she had pass'd, but surely dash'd had been On those huge rocks, but that, propitious still To Jason, Juno sped her safe along. These rocks are two; one lifts his summit sharp High as the spacious heav'ns, wrapt in dun clouds Perpetual, which nor autumn sees dispers'd Nor summer, for the sun shines never there; No mortal man might climb it or descend, Though twice ten hands and twice ten feet he own'd, For it is levigated as by art. Down scoop'd to Erebus, a cavern drear Yawns in the centre of its western side; Pass it, renown'd Ulysses! but aloof So far, that a keen arrow smartly sent Forth from thy bark should fail to reach the cave. There Scylla dwells, and thence her howl is heard Tremendous; shrill her voice is as the note Of hound new-whelp'd, but hideous her aspect, Such as no mortal man, nor ev'n a God Encount'ring her, should with delight survey. Her feet are twelve, all fore-feet; six her necks Of hideous length, each clubb'd into a head Terrific, and each head with fangs is arm'd In triple row, thick planted, stored with death. Plunged to her middle in the hollow den She lurks, protruding from the black abyss Her heads, with which the rav'ning monster dives In quest of dolphins, dog-fish, or of prey More bulky, such as in the roaring gulphs Of Amphitrite without end abounds. It is no seaman's boast that e'er he slipp'd Her cavern by, unharm'd. In ev'ry mouth She bears upcaught a mariner away. The other rock, Ulysses, thou shalt find Humbler, a bow-shot only from the first; On this a wild fig grows broad-leav'd, and here Charybdis dire ingulphs the sable flood. Each day she thrice disgorges, and each day Thrice swallows it. Ah! well forewarn'd, beware What time she swallows, that thou come not nigh, For not himself, Neptune, could snatch thee thence. Close passing Scylla's rock, shoot swift thy bark Beyond it, since the loss of six alone Is better far than shipwreck made of all.
"That was the day before yesterday, in the evening, but last night everything was changed. He had gone to school in the morning, he came back depressed, terribly depressed. In the evening I took him by the hand and we went for a walk; he would not talk. There was a wind blowing and no sun, and a feeling of autumn; twilight was coming on. We walked along, both of us depressed. 'Well, my boy,' said I, 'how about our setting off on our travels?' I thought I might bring him back to our talk of the day before. He didn't answer, but I felt his fingers trembling in my hand. Ah, I thought, it's a bad job; there's something fresh. We had reached the stone where we are now. I sat down on the stone. And in the air there were lots of kites flapping and whirling. There were as many as thirty in sight. Of course, it's just the season for the kites. 'Look, Ilusha,' said I, 'it's time we got out our last year's kite again. I'll mend it, where have you put it away?' My boy made no answer. He looked away and turned sideways to me. And then a gust of wind blew up the sand. He suddenly fell on me, threw both his little arms round my neck and held me tight. You know, when children are silent and proud, and try to keep back their tears when they are in great trouble and suddenly break down, their tears fall in streams. With those warm streams of tears, he suddenly wetted my face. He sobbed and shook as though he were in convulsions, and squeezed up against me as I sat on the stone. 'Father,' he kept crying, 'dear father, how he insulted you!' And I sobbed too. We sat shaking in each other's arms. 'Ilusha,' I said to him, 'Ilusha darling.' No one saw us then. God alone saw us, I hope He will record it to my credit. You must thank your brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch. No, sir, I won't thrash my boy for your satisfaction."
In the autumn of 1806 everybody had again begun talking of the war with Napoleon with even greater warmth than the year before. Orders were given to raise recruits, ten men in every thousand for the regular army, and besides this, nine men in every thousand for the militia. Everywhere Bonaparte was anathematized and in Moscow nothing but the coming war was talked of. For the Rostov family the whole interest of these preparations for war lay in the fact that Nicholas would not hear of remaining in Moscow, and only awaited the termination of Denisov's furlough after Christmas to return with him to their regiment. His approaching departure did not prevent his amusing himself, but rather gave zest to his pleasures. He spent the greater part of his time away from home, at dinners, parties, and balls.
While thus he spake, a billow on his head Bursting impetuous, whirl'd the raft around, And, dashing from his grasp the helm, himself Plunged far remote. Then came a sudden gust Of mingling winds, that in the middle snapp'd His mast, and, hurried o'er the waves afar, Both sail and sail-yard fell into the flood. Long time submerged he lay, nor could with ease The violence of that dread shock surmount, Or rise to air again, so burthensome His drench'd apparel proved; but, at the last, He rose, and, rising, sputter'd from his lips The brine that trickled copious from his brows. Nor, harass'd as he was, resign'd he yet His raft, but buffetting the waves aside With desp'rate efforts, seized it, and again Fast seated on the middle deck, escaped. Then roll'd the raft at random in the flood, Wallowing unwieldy, toss'd from wave to wave. As when in autumn, Boreas o'er the plain Conglomerated thorns before him drives, They, tangled, to each other close adhere, So her the winds drove wild about the Deep. By turns the South consign'd her to be sport For the rude North-wind, and, by turns, the East Yielded her to the worrying West a prey. But Cadmus' beauteous daughter (Ino once, Now named Leucothea) saw him; mortal erst Was she, and trod the earth, but nymph become Of Ocean since, in honours shares divine. She mark'd his anguish, and, while toss'd he roam'd, Pitied Ulysses; from the flood, in form A cormorant, she flew, and on the raft Close-corded perching, thus the Chief address'd.
Having ridden in the smoke past the Sixth Corps, behind the artillery which had been moved forward and was in action, deafening them with the noise of firing, they came to a small wood. There it was cool and quiet, with a scent of autumn. Pierre and the adjutant dismounted and walked up the hill on foot.
The coach with six horses was waiting at the porch. It was an autumn night, so dark that the coachman could not see the carriage pole. Servants with lanterns were bustling about in the porch. The immense house was brilliant with lights shining through its lofty windows. The domestic serfs were crowding in the hall, waiting to bid good-by to the young prince. The members of the household were all gathered in the reception hall: Michael Ivanovich, Mademoiselle Bourienne, Princess Mary, and the little princess. Prince Andrew had been called to his father's study as the latter wished to say good-by to him alone. All were waiting for them to come out.
Summer passed away in these occupations, and my return to Geneva was fixed for the latter end of autumn; but being delayed by several accidents, winter and snow arrived, the roads were deemed impassable, and my journey was retarded until the ensuing spring. I felt this delay very bitterly; for I longed to see my native town and my beloved friends. My return had only been delayed so long, from an unwillingness to leave Clerval in a strange place, before he had become acquainted with any of its inhabitants. The winter, however, was spent cheerfully; and although the spring was uncommonly late, when it came its beauty compensated for its dilatoriness.
Though there were no roses now, there were numbers of rare and beautiful autumn flowers growing wherever there was space for them, and evidently tended by a skillful hand; there were flower-beds round the church, and between the tombs; and the one-storied wooden house where the elder lived was also surrounded with flowers.
In the autumn the Rostovs returned to Moscow. Early in the winter Denisov also came back and stayed with them. The first half of the winter of 1806, which Nicholas Rostov spent in Moscow, was one of the happiest, merriest times for him and the whole family. Nicholas brought many young men to his parents' house. Vera was a handsome girl of twenty; Sonya a girl of sixteen with all the charm of an opening flower; Natasha, half grown up and half child, was now childishly amusing, now girlishly enchanting.
"This is the way it is, Mr. Mayor. It seems that there was in the neighborhood near Ailly-le-Haut-Clocher an old fellow who was called Father Champmathieu. He was a very wretched creature. No one paid any attention to him. No one knows what such people subsist on. Lately, last autumn, Father Champmathieu was arrested for the theft of some cider apples from--Well, no matter, a theft had been committed, a wall scaled, branches of trees broken. My Champmathieu was arrested. He still had the branch of apple-tree in his hand. The scamp is locked up. Up to this point it was merely an affair of a misdemeanor. But here is where Providence intervened.
Jean Valjean's inclination led him, as we have seen, to the least frequented spots, to solitary nooks, to forgotten places. There then existed, in the vicinity of the barriers of Paris, a sort of poor meadows, which were almost confounded with the city, where grew in summer sickly grain, and which, in autumn, after the harvest had been gathered, presented the appearance, not of having been reaped, but peeled. Jean Valjean loved to haunt these fields. Cosette was not bored there. It meant solitude to him and liberty to her. There, she became a little girl once more, she could run and almost play; she took off her hat, laid it on Jean Valjean's knees, and gathered bunches of flowers. She gazed at the butterflies on the flowers, but did not catch them; gentleness and tenderness are born with love, and the young girl who cherishes within her breast a trembling and fragile ideal has mercy on the wing of a butterfly. She wove garlands of poppies, which she placed on her head, and which, crossed and penetrated with sunlight, glowing until they flamed, formed for her rosy face a crown of burning embers.
Within a week Moscow already had fifteen thousand inhabitants, in a fortnight twenty-five thousand, and so on. By the autumn of 1813 the number, ever increasing and increasing, exceeded what it had been in 1812.
The statues under the trees, white and nude, had robes of shadow pierced with light; these goddesses were all tattered with sunlight; rays hung from them on all sides. Around the great fountain, the earth was already dried up to the point of being burnt. There was sufficient breeze to raise little insurrections of dust here and there. A few yellow leaves, left over from the autumn, chased each other merrily, and seemed to be playing tricks on each other.
His conversation with Count Rostopchin and the latter's tone of anxious hurry, the meeting with the courier who talked casually of how badly things were going in the army, the rumors of the discovery of spies in Moscow and of a leaflet in circulation stating that Napoleon promised to be in both the Russian capitals by the autumn, and the talk of the Emperor's being expected to arrive next day--all aroused with fresh force that feeling of agitation and expectation in Pierre which he had been conscious of ever since the appearance of the comet, and especially since the beginning of the war.
The succeeding week seemed long: it came to an end at last, however, like all sublunary things, and once more, towards the close of a pleasant autumn day, I found myself afoot on the road to Lowton. A picturesque track it was, by the way; lying along the side of the beck and through the sweetest curves of the dale: but that day I thought more of the letters, that might or might not be awaiting me at the little burgh whither I was bound, than of the charms of lea and water.
"No, ma'am--oh, no! No one is living there. I suppose you are a stranger in these parts, or you would have heard what happened last autumn,--Thornfield Hall is quite a ruin: it was burnt down just about harvest-time. A dreadful calamity! such an immense quantity of valuable property destroyed: hardly any of the furniture could be saved. The fire broke out at dead of night, and before the engines arrived from Millcote, the building was one mass of flame. It was a terrible spectacle: I witnessed it myself."