Autumn days--when the flowers are over, and the harvest well-nigh gathered in, and the flush and the eagerness very far behind, and the strength and the vigour things also of the past:--I think they are sweet days to which to look forward amid life’s hurry and bustle, its excitement of laughter and tears. A very peaceful land, a land of Beulah, where repose seems to reign, and all seems “only waiting.” No more wild dreams, it is true, of what life is going to be, but then no sad wakings, and, lo, it was a dream! No more quick blood coursing in the veins, no more excess of animal life making stillness impossible and silence torture; no more young devotion and quick enthusiasm, warming the heart even to tinder, ready to flare at the first spark of friendship or love. No more glow of poetry cast about every face, and every daisy, and every sky, and every scene of every act of the coming years. No more expectation of becoming a great poet, a mighty warrior, an evangeliser of the world. And then no vigour to act, as when life went on; no leading the front of the battle, striking strong strokes for the right; no rejoicing in the strength that has now come, and that is still, still in its prime. [Illustration] All that, and more, has passed away from life’s Autumn days. It was, perhaps, rather sad to feel these things departing; to notice growth first come to a standstill--and then, here and there the streak of Autumn, and the first yellow leaves stealing down. To find the years so short, instead of so long; to lose the wonder and the thrill at the first snowdrop, the first cowslip; the first nest low in the bushes with five blue eggs; the first excursion round the park wall for violets, or into the wood for nuts. To lose the glow of early love, the despair of early disappointment, the vigour of early intention and action; and to mellow down into a half-light, undisturbed by any of those violent lights and shadows. It was, I say, perhaps rather sad to feel these things departing.