A moral character is attached to autumnal scenes; the leaves falling like our years, the flowers fading like our hours, the clouds fleeting like our illusions, the light diminishing like our intelligence, the sun growing colder like our affections, the rivers becoming frozen like our lives, all bear secret relation to our destinies. It gave me indescribable pleasure to see the return of the tempestuous season...

Chateaubriand treats autumn as a moral and existential mirror: the season’s visible processes—falling leaves, fading flowers, shortening light, cooling sun, freezing rivers—become emblems for human aging, the waning of intellect and affection, and the hardening or cessation of life itself. The chain of similes insists that nature is not neutral scenery but a symbolic language that “bears secret relation” to human destiny. The closing turn—his “indescribable pleasure” at the return of stormy weather—suggests a Romantic attraction to melancholy and sublimity: turbulence in the natural world matches inner agitation, and the mind finds a paradoxical solace in recognizing its own transience reflected in the landscape.