Diary
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By all means keep a diary: the act of writing will help you to remember these good times, and the diary will prove the pleasantest of reading in after-years. It is not an easy thing to write in camp or on the march, but if it costs you an effort you will prize it all the more. I beg you to persevere, and, if you fail, to "try, try again." I cannot overcome the desire to tell you the results of my experience in diary-writing; for I have tried it long, and under many different circumstances. They are as follows:—

First, Any thing written at the time is far better than no record at all; so, if you can only write a pocket diary with lead pencil, do that.

Second, All such small diaries, scraps, letters, and every thing written illegibly or with lead pencil, are difficult to preserve or to read, and are very unhandy for reference.

Third, It is great folly to persuade yourself that after taking notes for a week or two, or writing a hurried sketch, you can extend or copy and illuminate at your leisure.

Consequently, write what you can, and let it stand with all its blots, errors, and nonsense. And be careful, when you are five years older, not to go through the diary with eraser and scissors; for, if you live still another five years, nothing will interest you more than this diary with all its defects.