The sun, who seems to have the immediate control of these matters, has for a few weeks been getting rapidly to the south, and the summer and autumn follow him. His declination, by the middle of the month, is the same, and the days are as short, as at the latter part of January: but how different the two seasons. Now, we generally have our Indian summer, and then, perhaps, is the coldest part of winter. When the earth has become so thoroughly heated by the longer days and more perpendicular sun of summer, it requires some time, after the sun has attained its greatest southern declination, for it to cool again to the lowest temperature of winter. We are no great admirers of the mere poetry and sentimentality of life, but, seeing it is November, suppose we indulge a little in the pensive mood. Let us take one of those pure transparent days which are only to be found at this season, and go to the southern declivity of some gentle swell where we may have the woods in our rear. Now look abroad to the south where the retiring summer seems yet to linger, and the autumn lies slumbering over the landscape. Here is no bold and abrupt coloring, no contrast of dark woods with yellow fields; the different features and tints seem blended into one grand mass, forming an extended and unbroken scene of quiet, calm serenity and loveliness. Over head is that deep transparent blue which belongs only to an autumn sky, with here and there a straggling white-edged cloud, which sometimes passing before the sun, we see the shadow as it travels over the plain, darkening successively for a moment the hills and fields until lost in the distance, and giving a transient life and motion to the sleeping scene before us. Now and then a single bird is to be seen, who, as if loth to leave the happy scenes of his summer joys, still lingers behind, long after his companions have departed for southern climes. Occasionally we are startled by the squirrel, who, with a cheek load of hickory nuts, rustles the leaves as he scampers to his hiding place, to finish stocking his cellars with provisions for the winter. For half an hour, not a breath of air is felt, or a sound heard; till presently, the wind, scarcely heard at first, begins to murmur among the trees in the distance; approaching, it increases to a mournful howl, bringing with it a cloud of leaves, which, whirled in eddies across the sky above us, afford us a lecture “more eloquent than words,” on the end there _must_ be to all of the beautiful and fascinating, to which we have set our hearts and engaged our affections here. Now the wind dies away again in moaning sighs, the leaves settle away in the distance, and presently all is again quiet, lonely and silent.