Autumn and Winter are my two favorite seasons. Spring is third and there is no fourth. I ran across this quote from one of my literary heroes, Lin Yutang, and had to share it.
“I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death.”
from My Country, My People by Lin Yutang
Song of Cha 茶道 