impossible not to be fond of our mother now; for she is so fond of us!
At other periods she does not make this impression on me, or only at
rare intervals; but in those genial days of autumn, when she has
perfected her harvests and accomplished every needful thing that was
given her to do, then she overflows with a blessed superfluity of
love. She has leisure to caress her children now. It is good to be
alive and at such times. Thank Heaven for breath--yes, for mere
breath--when it is made up of a heavenly breeze like this! It comes
with a real kiss upon our cheeks; it would linger fondly around us if
it might; but, since it must be gone, it embraces us with its whole
kindly heart and passes onward to embrace likewise the next thing that
it meets. A blessing is flung abroad and scattered far and wide over
the earth, to be gathered up by all who choose. I recline upon the
still unwithered grass and whisper to myself, "O perfect day! O
beautiful world! O beneficent God!" And it is the promise of a
blessed eternity; for our Creator would never have made such lovely
days and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond
all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal. This sunshine is
the golden pledge thereof. It beams through the gates of paradise and
shows us glimpses far inward.

By and by, in a little time, the outward world puts on a drear
austerity. On some October morning there is a heavy hoarfrost on the
grass and along the tops of the fences; and at sunrise the leaves fall
from the trees of our avenue, without a breath of wind, quietly
descending by their own weight. All summer long they have murmured
like the noise of waters; they have roared loudly while the branches
were wrestling with the thunder-gust; they have made music both glad
and solemn; they have attuned my thoughts by their quiet sound as I
paced to and fro beneath the arch of intermingling boughs. Now they