the soldier misses most and most
frequently longs for. It is not the feather bed or the warm biscuits
that he thinks of, but that dainty little penwiper, with his initials
worked in it, and those embroidered slippers, that _she_ gave him. He
would not give a contractor's conscience for sweet milk; but he would
like to have his smoking cap.

I once seriously thought of sending home for a certain _terra cotta_
vase for holding cigars--a mantelpiece ornament; but I happened to
remember that I had cigars very seldom, and a mantelpiece not at all,
and concluded not to send.

Many of these little things the young soldier will bring from home with
him, in spite of the pooh-poohs of practical parents, and carry with
him, in spite of the sneers of thoughtless comrades. I know a fellow who
carries in his breast pocket the withered, odorless skeleton of a
bouquet, that was given him on the day he left home, and who will carry
it till he returns, or till it is reddened with his blood. And when I
see a man, in the face of ridicule and brutal scoffing, through long
marches and weary days of dispiriting labor, clinging with fond tenacity
to some little memento of the past, I set him down as a man with his
heart in the right place, who will do his country and God good service
when there is need. And--it is well to practise what one admires in
others--I confess that I have a smoking cap that I have often packed
into my knapsack, at the expense of a pair of socks; and I would rather
have left out my only shirt that was off duty than that it should have
failed to go with me. Yes, dear girls, your little presents, perhaps
forgotten by you, by us are fondly cherished; and around them all hover,
like the perfume of fresh flowers, fragrant memories of the merry days
gone by, and dreams of starry eyes and laughing lips, of floating
drapery and flashing jewels, and moonlit summer nights in the dear
Northland.

May your eyes ne'er grow dim, nor your smiles fade away!

LITERARY NOTICES.

LEVANA; or, The Doctrine of Education. Translated from the
German of JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER, Author of 'Flower,
Fruit, and Thorn Pieces, 'Titan,' 'Walt and Vult,' etc., etc.
Boston: Ticknor & Fields. For sale by D. Appleton & Co., New York.

The mere annunciation of a book, as yet unknown to the American public,
from the pen of Jean Paul Richter, will be sufficient to awaken the
attention of all cultivated readers. He who h