"The feeling one has cannot be described"

"I noticed, on my early walk, that as the sun rose higher and higher in the heavens, the earth passed through a number of sudden and visible moods. Instead of that peaceful mood of midsummer which accompanies the progress of the forenoon, the countryside grew restless and melancholy in turn, almost taking shape and action, giving one the impression that Nature had assumed wild, faun-like emotions. In the glinting sunlight you could almost see the troubled, alert eyes of a faun; and woods, hills and valleys were as its shaggy limbs, trying to evade some mysterious spirits. The feeling one has cannot be described; one can only make fanciful conjectures. There is little that is so illusory about the coming of autumn. The tinge of sadness which everywhere touches the ripeness of things, gives a tone of vibrancy to Nature which is provocative. Its effect upon human emotion is thrilling, though in a subdued key. "

~ William Stanley Braithwaite

Photo by Maria Browning. Click on the image to enlarge it.