^ oxford in autumn

october is my favorite month of the year. the air smells crisp and fresh, the weather is perfectly cool, leaves are bright and daintily messy and gorgeous. while i love my work, there is the inevitable stress that occupies my mind, distracting me from enjoying my autumn. yet, sometimes the two correspond. here anne elliot thinks of autumn, though distracted by her own mind’s musings:

her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn, that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness, that season which has drawn every poet, worthy of being read, some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.

– jane austen’s persuasion ★