Bonaro Wilkinson Overstreet:
(30 October 1902 – 3 September 1985).
American author, poet, psychologist, and lecturer.
With her husband, Harry Allen Overstreet, she lectured widely and co-wrote a number of books.
October is a symphony of permanence and change.
The sentence plays on a tension that October makes unusually visible. Permanence is the reliable seasonal cycle: autumn always arrives, the harvest comes in, the days keep shortening. Change is what you see happening: leaves turning and falling, the light fading, the temperature dropping. “Symphony” suggests these are not opposing forces but parts of one composition. The change belongs to the lasting pattern, and the pattern is made of change.
The longer version of the sentence supports this reading:
“of one rich mood played off against another, of silence played off against earth’s flutes and trumpets and violins.”
October is described as a month of contrasts that work together, loud and quiet, ending and continuing.
The same essay adds another layer. Overstreet writes that autumn asks us to prepare for the future and be wise about gathering and keeping, but also to learn to let go and to see the beauty of sparseness. So the quote also carries a human parallel: life has its constants and its transitions, and a mature person holds both at once.
Origin:
According to quotationsbywomen.com, the line comes from Overstreet’s essay “Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness,” which appears in ‘Jean Beaven Abernethy’s “Meditations for Women”‘. The page gives no publication year, so I can’t date the book. The full sentence continues beyond what most quote sites show:
“of one rich mood played off against another, of silence played off against earth’s flutes and trumpets and violins.”
Author:
Bonaro Wilkinson Overstreet (1902-1985)
– An American poet, lecturer and writer.
She often worked with her husband, the philosopher and psychologist Harry A. Overstreet. The ‘attribution to her is confirmed by the source above and is consistent across the many quote collections, newsletters and articles where the line appears’.
Autumn leaves are a symphony of sustainability in change.
