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"Somebody has called the autumnal days the 'saddest of the year. I have forgotten who he was, if I ever knew; but in my judgment, he was all wrong. Dark days there are damp, chilly, misty, wet, and unpleasant days in autumn; days that make one relish a corner by an old-fashioned fire.
We could show that it was owing to changes of wind that the Spaniards failed to take Leyden, the fall of which into their hands would probably have proved fatal to the Dutch cause; that a sudden thaw prevented the French from seizing the Hague in 1672, and compelling the Dutch to acknowledge themselves subjects of Louis XIV.; that a change of wind enabled William of Orange to land in England, in 1688, without fighting a battle, when even victory might have been fatal to his purpose; that Continental expeditions fitted out for the purpose of restoring the Stuarts to the British throne were more than once ruined by the occurrence of tempests; that the defeat of our army at Germantown was in part due to the existence of a fog; that a severe storm prevented General Howe from assailing the American position on Dorchester Heights, and so enabled Washington to make that position too strong to be attacked with hope of success, whereby Boston was freed from the enemy's presence; that a heavy fall of rain, by rendering the River Catawba unfordable, put a stop, for a few days, to those movements by which Lord Cornwallis intended to destroy the army of General Morgan, and obtain compensation for Tarleton's defeat at the Cowpens; that an autumnal tempest compelled the same British commander to abandon a project of retreat from Yorktown, which good military critics have thought well conceived, and promising success; that the severity of the winter of 1813 interfered effectively with the measures which Napoleon had formed with the view of restoring his affairs, so sadly compromised by his failure in Russia; that the "misty, chilly, and insalubrious" weather of Louisiana, and its mud, had a marked effect on Sir Edward Pakenham's army, and helped us to victory over one of the finest forces ever sent by Europe to the West; that in 1828 the Russians lost myriads of men and horses, in the Danubian country and its vicinity, through heavy rains and hard frosts; that the November hurricane of 1854 all but paralyzed the allied forces in the Crimea; and many similar things that establish the helplessness of men in arms when the weather is adverse to them.
That done, she clasped her hands round her knees, and sat now gossiping, now silent, in the pale autumnal beauty. There was a bird wistfully twittering in the branches overhead, and ever and again a withered leaf would slip circling down from the motionless beech boughs arched in their stillness above their heads beneath the thin blue sky.
They often or generally fill up the interstices between the drawn-in leaves with moist viscid earth ejected from their bodies; and thus the mouths of the burrows are securely plugged. Hundreds of such plugged burrows may be seen in many places, especially during the autumnal and early winter months.
The temporary cessation of Bessy's week-end parties had naturally not closed her doors to occasional visitors, and glimpses of the autumnal animation of Long Island passed now and then across the Amhersts' horizon.
Beautiful lakes, studded with still more beautiful islands, reflected the beams of the sun. An endless succession of fields, in sober autumnal colors, with the cottages of the laborers and stacks of grain scattered here and there upon them, and rivers meandering through verdant meadows, gave variety and enchantment to the view.
The leaves of the trees had taken on an additional tinge of autumnal yellow and red since Brian last looked at them with an observant eye. For the past week he had thought of nothing but of the intolerable grief and pain that had come upon him.
One evening he sulked at some saucy remark of hers; he sitting in the chimney corner with his arms on his knees, and his head bent forwards, lazily gazing into the wood-fire on the hearth, and luxuriating in rest after a hard day's labour; she sitting among the geraniums on the long, low window-seat, trying to catch the last slanting rays of the autumnal light to enable her to finish stitching a shirt-collar for Will, who lounged full length on the flags at the other side of the hearth to Michael, poking the burning wood from time to time with a long hazel- stick to bring out the leap of glittering sparks.
In Cyprus, at the autumnal equinox, i.e., the beginning of the year in the Syro-Macedonian calendar, the death of Adonis falling on the 23rd of September, his resurrection on the 1st of October, the beginning of a New Year. He is the Eniautos Daimon. The duration of the feast varied from two days, as at Alexandria, to seven or eight.
Hazy autumnal morning, clear and hot in the afternoon, with light northerly breeze. Thermometer at five P.M. 26 degrees centigrade. Germans appear to have evacuated the Compiegne-Senlis region, and are apparently moving towards the southeast, thus continuing a movement that began on Friday.
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