Prose remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, with a selection from his letters and a memoir

by Arthur Hugh Clough

March 30.

This morning I went for a walk of an hour and a half to Fresh Pond, the pond where they cut the ice to go to England, India, or wherever it may be. There are odd birds here. The rooks fly to the South, and have just reappeared; that is, I have seen one. There is a bird about as big as a starling, with a black head, and a slight tinge of red on the breast; this they call the robin. There are little things they call sparrows, more like sedge-birds, I think; and black-birds with long tails, that hold Sunday meetings in the pines, bigger than ours. But the prettiest bird I have seen is the blue-bird, rather less than the robin, with blue back and wings, and a red-tinted breast, something like a bullfinch, only larger.

The extremely-respectables of Boston attend ‘the Stone Chapel,’ an Episcopalian church of old time, whose minister, some thirty years ago perhaps, told his congregation that he had become a Unitarian, and therewith resigned. So they considered and consulted, and said, Well, they liked him very much, and they thought they would turn Unitarians too; what was good enough for him was likely to be as much as would do very well for them. So they took the English liturgy (for moreover certain endowments depended on the use of the Church liturgy) and cut off the tails of the prayers, and pruned things here and there, and lo! they have a very handsome Common Prayer Book, quite as good as any genuine one. And to this Stone Chapel go all the fashionable Unitarian people of Boston, in their best dresses, just as if they were Church of England people, and are deeply attached to their liturgy just as if it was the real thing. Is not that curious?

Did I tell you of the aged Calvinist woman, who being asked about the Universalists, said, ‘Yes, they expect that everybody will be saved, but we “look for better things”?’

April 1.

I went last night to Dana’s, where was pretty nearly all Cambridge; and where I had some port wine, I believe the first I have seen since I came to America. He showed us a copy of Hallam’s works handsomely bound, received by him in gratitude for his services in their behalf from the negroes of Boston. He defended their cause in some of the trials about the Fugitive Law.

Before the end of this month the Nortons depart, which will reduce my stock of sociabilities materially. They go in summer to Newport.

I have already established two decent walks, not to mention a sort of half-hour stroll, at the end of which there is a little spot where one can pause and be solaced. On southern slopes there is positively a slight tinge of green. The common, however, which is level, seems to me as brown as ever it was. Mind you tell me as soon as ever the little ferns begin to curl up out of the ground over with you.

April 4.

I have just had my little Ethics class, who seem to enjoy themselves very well, and certainly relieve my inactive life of Plutarchising very pleasantly. This sort of thing, the class of six or seven, is what I have always got on best with. I might get on as far as twelve or fifteen, but after that it gets disagreeable comparatively. I got on famously with some five of the youths at University College with these same Ethics, in the year 1851.