SUNDOWN 
“The autumn skies are flushed with gold,” for it is 
October, when the fall of the year is at its brightest, and 
most beautiful. There is no denying that the breath of 
decay comes over the fading meadows and blows down 
the lanes and roads; it blows, indeed, like love in the 
old boat-song of the Nile, it “ blows into the heart.” 
Yet to one in the right spirit and of sane emotions 
October may very well appear to be the most enjoyable 
of all the months, past or to come. The air has an 
even temper; it gently stimulates; gone are the ardour 
and discomfortable oppression of the midsummer sun, 
and not yet are the bitter chill and mist of November 
or the empty silence of the long winter. We stand, as 
it were, in the fine phrase of Stevenson, “ upon a little 
rising ground in this desperate descent,” and have per¬ 
mission for a space to revel in our St. Martin’s summer. 
From the back of tradition we have been accustomed 
to look for good weather in this month. When Hood 
wrote of the skies as flushed with gold it may be that 
he was in London, for he was a thorough Londoner. 
Gold, in truth, characterises October in London far 
more than that same month in the country. 
“ For earth and sky and air 
Are golden everywhere, 
And golden with a gold so suave and fine 
That looking on it lifts the heart like wine.” 
In the country the change comes slowly, is only 
coming even now, with russets and ambers and the 
K 
