When you were an infant in Italy I was very disconcerted to be told that much of the Italian population had never seen the beauties of the autumn foliage in Vermont and New Hampshire. High in the Abruzzi there are stands of Aspen and Poplar that turn yellow in the fall and they seem to think this adequate. I feel that this explains some of their governmental instability. A people who have never experienced autumn foliage are inclined to be backward. The fact that California has no autumn foliage might have accounted for Reagan’s election as Governor.

John Cheever
Letter to his son, Fred
23rd September 1981

At no other time [than Autumn], it seems to me, does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Letter to his wife, Clara
13th September 1907

Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love—that makes life and nature harmonise. 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 Maria Lewis
1st October 1841

The autumn here is just beyond words—you must see it someday. One clear gold day after another—with the trees flowering into flame. All its sadness is a triumphant sadness. It is full of glory. I got up very early to get breakfast and it was absolutely still outside and gold except for the continual short broken sound of leaves falling one by one (no wind). Like music it was.

May Sarton
Letter to Juliette Huxley
17th October 1937

As long as autumn lasts I won’t have enough hands, canvas or colours to paint the beautiful things that I see.

Vincent van Gogh
Letter to his brother, Theo
25th September 1888

The weather of heaven will be bright autumn, I always think.

Louise Bogan
Letter to Theodore Roethke
3rd October 1935