Berthold Auerbach was in hearty sympathy with all about him—always living in the heart of the city, seeing his friends once a week through special invitation, as well as whenever they called, and observing his birthdays with a childish interest. One day, finding him sitting on a sofa, back of a table covered with flowers and fruits and presents of various kinds, we at once knew it was his birthday, and expressed a regret that we had not come in with an offering. “Oh, that does not matter, so you bring yourselves; the presents are only from those who did not come; they can not take the place of the absent ones, but they signify love! and love is what we live for!” How much more admirable than the rigid solitary scholar who sits far removed from the voice of the people! Franz Liszt is another German who, although so old, and one would think so exhausted with the voice of praise and adoration from the world, retains an intense longing for his friends and society, and they for him. When he reaches Weimar in the summer, after his winter in Pesth, every one knows or feels his presence. The Berliners even rejoice that he is the nearer to them. We are glad that Longfellow and Buchanan Read and Healy, and a host of Americans have felt his magic friendship, and watched his Saturn fingers so full of knots. His Sixth Rhapsodie, “Les Cloches de Geneve”—“etûdes d’exécution transcendante”—tell how great is his heart, and have most lasting influence upon the mind and feelings. Wagner, Liszt, Auerbach, Knaus and many other artists, musicians and writers of Germany, show that it is possible to live for one’s friends, while living also for fame. But, alas! in America reputation and success are coupled with such secluded habits and such insatiable work that the personal influence of our literary and scientific men can not be known or estimated. Either overwork or small means keeps most of them tied down to a most prosaic life. The wife of one of our distinguished poets, in speaking of the state of society in New York City, said there had not been for years what one could call a literary coterie; that Bryant during his lifetime could have had such a salon, but he was personally too cold and indifferent to devote his leisure hours to the light and easy-going talk of the salon; but she went on to say that had one lamented one lived, he with his warm and generous nature, his wide and untiring interest in others, could have been the center, the heart and soul of such a circle. Alas! in the last few years how are the great about us fallen—Longfellow, Emerson, Bayard, Taylor, Bryant, Ticknor, Motley. Bancroft, who came in with the beginning of the century, may be spared us until its end. FLOTSAM! (1492.) By J. LOGIE ROBERTSON. All the mill-horses of Europe Were plodding round and round, All the mills were droning The same old sound.