Autumn, the most beautiful of the four seasons. The path between summer and winter was measured by milestones like the Harvest Festival, Halloween, and, Thanksgiving. The wonder of Autumn is always threaded through with a bitter-sweet undercurrent of sadness. A sense of loss in saying goodbye as I watch the slow dying of the old year. An awareness of time passing and being lost. A reminder of the transience of beauty as trees blaze with color for one last defiant hurrah before the chilly fingers of winter strip the landscape bare. It's this ambiguity of mood that makes the most complex and subtle season that is the wonder of Autumn. If summer is a pretty girl in a flirty frock, Autumn is a beautiful woman with a hint of sadness about her, which only makes me love her more.  

 

 

 

 

Crystal: "Do you realize that most people use two percent of their mind's potential?" Roseanne: "That much, huh?"

 

 

 

From the television sitcom, ROSEANNE.
 

In the Victorian era, death was not a hidden sorrow but a visible part of everyday life. One of the most striking expressions of this was post-mortem photography—a practice in which families had their deceased loved ones, often children, photographed in carefully posed arrangements. With high childhood mortality rates due to illnesses like measles, cholera, and diphtheria, many families never had the chance to photograph their children while alive. These final portraits, though solemn, were treasured keepsakes—an attempt to hold on to the fleeting image of a life lost too soon.

Mourning in Victorian society was a deeply structured and personal affair. People wore mourning clothes, created jewelry from locks of hair, exchanged funeral cards, and displayed photographs of the deceased. Far from being considered macabre, post-mortem photographs were viewed as respectful and necessary. Infants and children were often positioned to look peacefully asleep, sometimes in their mother’s arms or surrounded by flowers, capturing a sense of serenity rather than sorrow. These images were meant to comfort the living, to offer a tangible connection in a time when death often arrived suddenly and cruelly.

This openness to death reflected the realities of a world with limited medical care and frequent loss. With little control over illness or injury, Victorian families sought solace in ritual and remembrance. Post-mortem photography became an act of emotional survival—an effort to preserve memory in a time when death was familiar but no less devastating. Today, these photographs are haunting relics of an era when grief was not hidden away but honored with grace and enduring love.

 

Rescuers work the wreck of Albert Camus' custom-built Facel Vega automobile outside of Paris, France after it crashed into a tree at approximately 80 mph in 1957. Camus, aged 46, passed away at the scene; his friend, publisher, & driver of the car, Michel Gallimard, died a few days later.

This photograph shows the wreck of the Facel Vega automobile that ended the life of French philosopher and writer Albert Camus. On January 4, 1960, Camus was traveling with his friend and publisher Michel Gallimard when the car veered off the road and slammed into a tree at nearly 80 mph outside of Paris. Camus, just 46 years old, was killed instantly. Gallimard succumbed to his injuries a few days later.

Camus, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957, was one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. Known for works such as The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus, he explored themes of absurdity, meaning, and human resilience. His death was not only a tragedy for French intellectual life but also a moment that left readers worldwide stunned.

In the aftermath, a haunting detail emerged: in his briefcase was an unused train ticket. Camus had originally planned to return to Paris by rail but decided to ride in Gallimard’s car at the last moment. To many, this twist seemed like a cruel echo of the very absurdity Camus had spent his career writing about.

Added Fact: When police examined the wreckage, they discovered the unfinished manuscript of Camus’ final novel, The First Man, in the back seat. The handwritten pages were later recovered and published posthumously in 1994. The book, semi-autobiographical in nature, offered a deeply personal exploration of Camus’ childhood in Algeria and was seen by many scholars as his most intimate and mature work, one that might have marked a new direction in his philosophy had he lived.

 

 

In 1860, after 21 years of marriage and six children, Elizabeth Packard was locked in an Illinois asylum.

Not for violence. Not for instability. But for disagreeing with her husband’s beliefs. Under the law, a man needed no proof, no trial, not even his wife’s consent to declare her insane.

Inside the asylum, Elizabeth uncovered a cruel truth: many women around her were not “mad” at all. They were wives who resisted, daughters who defied, women who spoke too boldly.

Where others broke, Elizabeth sharpened her pen. She wrote. She observed. She waited.

After three years, she finally stood in court — and defended her right to think for herself. She won her freedom. But she didn’t stop there.

In books, speeches, and campaigns to lawmakers, she exposed the abuses of asylums and fought to reform laws that gave men unchecked power over women.

Elizabeth Packard nearly lost her life as she knew it. But her defiance changed the law — securing protections for generations of women to come.

Credit goes to the respective owner.

 Mugshot of Bertha Boronda, the woman who was arrested for cutting off her husband's pen*s with a razor in 1907.