Attempt > Volume 1 and Select writings

THE ATTEMPT
257
Autumn OjouciMri unkr lljc
Standing now on the very confines of winter—the “ death-sleep ” of nature, I
look back lovingly on the summer and autumn gone. "With “ what a glory comes
and goes the year,” and truly this autumn has been an exquisite and prolonged one. I
am loth to leave the country in its loveliness (never so great to me as at this season),
for the dreary town with its weary round of duties and pleasures. What beauty
reigns still! The rich ripe fruits, the lovely pale flowers still mingling with the
sombre russet tints. What can exceed the glorious lustre of the beech trees 1 broad
brown shade touched into golden hues by the last rays of the setting sun; and the
sunsets are never so beautiful and varied as now. How calm and quiet it is around ;
the busy hum of summer insects is greatly hushed, the warbling of birds is past; if
any sound breaks the stillness, it is the soft drop of a beech-nut, or the rustle of a
falling leaf. Surely such a lovely scene—this solemn silence of the autumn woods—is
eloquent to every heart of the glory of “ Our Father,” who hath given us all seasons
and their beauty to enjoy.
Fain would I linger on and watch this beauty fade, as it so soon must, and give
place to what, at first sight, seems truly desolation and sadness. Look at the change
a month has brought—where there was waving corn, or busy reapers and loaded wains,
there are now rough stubble-fields, or brown earth, where the plough has been already
at work. Another past,—and the sere leaves will fall thick and fast, the bare hedge-rows
will show the deserted birds’ nests, so eagerly sought in vain in summer, and the now
beautiful plantations will be a mere naked network. But the transition is too gradual
to startle : leaf after leaf drops softly, tint after tint creeps over the forests, the year
wanes from autumn to winter with many a pleasing beautiful change, peculiarly
characteristic of the “ season of the slowly fading year.”
Autumn suggests many ideas to the thoughtful mind as it progresses onward from
the close of summer’s heat to the late chill and frosts, which warn us that winter is
i at hand. It is a period of ripeness and perfection; but there is also associated with it
reflections which its very mature beauty suggests—the sadder and more solemn
thoughts connected with completion and decay. We entertain towards it a subdued
sense of quiet enjoyment in which the consciousness of realization supersedes the
pleasurable anticipations of hope; but also, we feel unavoidably forced to the con¬
clusions connected with a period of decline.—The work of the year seems at an end,
I