Little Essays in Literature and Life Author:Richard Burton General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1914 Original Publisher: The Century co. Subjects: American essays Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Mill... more »ion-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: Hgain tbe (Solfccn Weatber IF it were our first experience of it, would it be more or less beautiful ? one wonders on these golden days of October. If the marvel of them were a surprise instead of a treasured memory, would our joy be diminished or increased? Perhaps the mingling of expectation and fresh delight is what gives the October mood its richest quality. We knew it would come, since it always has, yet we were not quite prepared for the mellow perfection of its look, the too-soon-departed splendor of its spangled hours. To know autumn at its best is to feel that, once at least in life, anticipation is no cheat, for realization even beggars our dream of the truth. Nor is it static loveliness. Little by little, as day follows day, there is an added keenness in the air, a winy, crisp flavor to one's very breathing; the yellows become more dominant, the reds creep in to make the chromatic gamut more variegated, and, so gradually that you hardly observe it, the subtle browns and grays and sober bronzes temper the higher coloring and lead on to that ineffable spiritual quality that makes November, to the perceptive soul, the most suggestive month of the year. Melancholy grows with thechange, yes; but it is rather the memory of sorrow than sorrow itself; or, better, it is the sad that is so sweet as to pluck the sting from grief, and substitute for the inertia of loss great brooding thoughts of peace and of fruition. Autumn musings are thus reminiscent yet fore-looking. It is as though Nature, her active summer work done, sits for a pleas...« less