Autumn Miracles

Autumn Leaves by John Everett Millais 1856 *

Has it happened at your house, too?  Children running in with leaves, leaves and more leaves? "Look at this one!  This one has three colors!"

They see it, don't they?

Children should be brought up, too, to perceive that a miracle is not less a miracle because it occurs so constantly and regularly that we call it a law; that sap rises in a tree, that a boy is born with his uncle's eyes, that an answer that we can perceive comes to our serious prayers; these things are not the less miracles because they happen frequently or invariably, and because we have ceased to wonder about them.
-Mason, Vol. 6, p. 148

*John Ruskin said that this painting was "the first instance of a perfectly painted twilight."  Mallais himself said of the painting that he "intended the picture to awaken by its solemnity the deepest religious reflection. I chose the subject of burning leaves as most calculated to produce this feeling." I think it's beautiful.