AUTUMN 



FINE and gentle though the gradations of English seasons 

 are, we also know changes that are sufficiently sudden and 

 complete. In and about September comes the suddenest 

 and completest of all. The harvest falls. Stiff and thorny 

 stubbles take the place of golden acres wonderfully sensitive 

 to light and air. You may see a puff of wind moving across 

 the field as you may trace it over the surface of a level sea. 

 The ears shift the light in wrinkles of laughter as 'number- 

 less ' as Aeschylus saw in the tumbling ocean. For a week 

 or two the sheaves are set up in stooks that the ripe grain 

 may mature, for ripening and maturing are quite different 

 though both necessary processes. So much sign is there of 

 the harvest that was. But the modern farmer has left little 

 of the old gradation. The ploughs now follow the reapers 

 so closely that often in south and mid England the stubble is 

 turned over, and the land in tilth again some time before the 

 carrying of the sheaves is complete. Indeed the ploughs 

 and the carts are often in the same field together. One walks 

 in a new country. 



Towards the coast the gulls press and scramble so close 

 behind the plough that the ploughman could strike them with 

 the whip, and no sight adds more to the sensation of strange- 



