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The Front: July 1st 1864, Your letters, dear friend - those of the 10th and 21st for the others have not reached me yet - touch me and warm me more than I can say. And I thank you very much for your likeness, which I have so long wanted to possess. It is a little older and more matronly than I had thought of you as being, but the suggestion of the face is full of that immortal comfort that does not ever grow old, that does not ever decay. I can almost fancy it - or rather almost discern it - as the incarnate expression of Mrs. Browning's solemn triumphal chant: "Glory to God, to God, she saith; Knowledge by suffering entereth, And life is perfected by death." That I shall take good care of it I need not assure you, for that you know already. Certainly, dear friend, I shall be as careful of my health as circumstances, and reference to duty, permit. But you know that it is a mean and little solicitude which exalts the bodily comfort into highest importance, and I am really more comfortable and contented in heart and mind here where the air is thick with bullets and shells than I was at Chattanooga, a hundred miles in the rear. I am not very strong. I do not suppose I shall ever again be very well; but I accept these aches and pains very gladly and willingly, and trust not to murmur should the necessity for a greater sacrifice arise. O friend