Definition
An Indian summer is a period of unseasonably warm, dry weather, occurring after the end of summer proper. The US National Weather Service defines this as where the weather is sunny and clear, and above 21 °C (70 °F), after there has been a sharp frost; a period normally associated with late-September to mid-November.
A famous use of the phrase in American literature is Van Wyck Brooks' New England: Indian Summer (1940), chosen to suggest inconsistency, infertility, and depleted strength.
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“The physicians say, they are not materialists; but they are:MSpirit is matter reduced to an extreme thinness: O so thin!—But the definition of spiritual should be, that which is its own evidence. What notions do they attach to love! what to religion! One would not willingly pronounce these words in their hearing, and give them the occasion to profane them.”
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