"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. There are gusty, windy, capricious days in autumn,
which nobody cares to praise, when the northwest wind goes sweeping
over the forest, roaring among the trees, and whirling the sere leaves
along the ground, and which, to tell the truth about them, are
anything but pleasant. But 'some days _must_ be dark and dreary,' and
they serve to give the sunlight of a bright to-morrow a keener relish,
and a lovelier comparative beauty. To call the fall days the 'saddest
of the year' is an absurdity, poetical I admit, but still an
absurdity. There is nothing sad in a cold, or a wet, a drizzly, a
gusty, or a stormy day; much there may be that is unpleasant, much
that one may be disposed to quarrel with, but they are anything
but sad.
"A calm autumnal day in the country is a great thing, a beautiful
thing, a thing to thank God for; a thing to make one happy, buoyant of
spirit, full of gratitude to the great Creator; a thing to make one
merry, too, not with a loud and boisterous mirth, but with a heart
full to overflowing with cheerfulness, and a calm joy.
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