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Last night the waiter put the celery on with the cheese, and I knew that summer was indeed dead. Other signs of autumn there may bethe reddening leaf, the chill in the early-morning air, the misty eveningsbut none of these comes home to me so truly. There may be cool mornings in July; in a year of drought the leaves may change before their time; it is only with the first celery that summer is over. I knew all along that it would not last. Even in April I was saying that winter would soon be here. Yet somehow it had begun to seem possible lately that a miracle might happen, that summer might drift on and on through the months a final upheaval to crown a wonderful year. The celery settled that. Last night with the celery autumn came into its own. A week ago I grieved for the dying summer. I wondered how I could possibly bear the waitingthe eight long months till May. In vain to comfort myself with the thought that I could get through more work in the winter undistracted by thoughts of cricket grounds and country houses. In vain, equally, to tell myself that I could stay in bed later in the mornings. | 
