Peggy Toney Horton:
West Virginia, USA
American journalist, author and blogger.
Whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul, I shall recall the memory of warm, sunny, late summer afternoons like this one, and be comforted greatly.
What could be more exciting than an October day? It’s your birthday, Fourth of July, and Christmas all rolled into one.
This is October for me. Withdrawing into my own world, blocking out everything except the beauty of the season, my reflections, and my relationship with God, I find that this is enough to sustain me through the long cold winter, and beyond.
Ah, lovely October, as you usher in the season that awakens my soul, your awesome beauty compels my spirit to soar like a leaf caught in an autumn breeze and my heart to sing like a heavenly choir.
My beloved October has returned—with its brilliant colors, cool temperatures, and sunny, cloudless, azure skies, and I must enjoy it before it escapes for another year.
Ah, September! You are the doorway to the season that awakens my soul, but I must confess that I love you only because you are a prelude to my beloved October.
As the alluring song of September begins to whisper in my ear, my passionate spirit yearns for the splendor of its promise.
The line personifies September as a seductive, musical presence — its “alluring song” — that stirs something in the speaker. “Passionate spirit” and “yearns” frame the arrival of the season not just as a shift in weather, but as an emotional pull: a longing or anticipation for what’s coming. “Splendor of its promise” suggests the focus is on anticipation — the beauty September is about to unfold — rather than beauty it already holds. It fits Horton’s broader style: warm, nostalgic, faith-inflected reflections on the seasons, memory, and family (she has a companion line about October calling it “the season that awakens my soul”).
Origin:
The quote isn’t tied to one specific famous published work with a clear citation. It circulates on quote-aggregator sites (Goodreads, IZ Quotes, Quote Garden, The Guardian, and various “September quotes” roundups) with identical wording and consistent attribution to her, and a couple of her other quotes have been picked up in published quote-collection books (“She Said What? Quotable Women Talk Aging” by Dr. Kathleen Cannon; “Quotes to Live Your Life By!” by Emma Careford). Given her body of work — personal essays and seasonal reflections published in “The Charleston Gazette” and blogs like “Peggy’s Ponderings” — this line most likely comes from one of those essays or blog posts rather than from a poem or book chapter, but no specific original source is cited anywhere I found.
Author:
Peggy Toney Horton is a real, documented personal-essay writer and columnist who lives in a small town near Charleston, West Virginia. She’s a long-time contributor to the “Charleston Gazette-Mail” (notably its “Essays on Faith” column), and her work has also appeared in “USA Deep South”, “All Things Girl,” “Midlife Collage”, “Bewildering Stories”, “Front Porch Magazine”, “Page & Spine”, “Memoirabilia”, and “A Quiet Courage.” She’s the author of several books, including “Somewhere in Heaven My Mother Is Smiling” (2011) — which was among the top 100 imported books in China in 2011–2012 — along with “Unseen Angels”, “Sweet Whispers of Youth”, “Stop the World and Get Off”, “Does God Want Us to Be Happy”, “Cries of a Broken Spirit”, “Sunshine Hollow”, ‘Dancing With Sugarplums”, and “She Did It Her Way”. She lost her son to cancer in 2020, and some of her more recent essays reflect on that grief.
