ion to that cause for which they here gave the last
full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that _these
dead_ shall not have died in vain; that _this nation_, under God,
shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people,
by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

186. _Small Economies_, from Mrs. Gaskell's _Cranford_.

I have often noticed that everyone has his own individual small
economies--careful habits of saving fractions of pennies in some
one peculiar direction--any disturbance of which annoys him more
than spending shillings or pounds on some real extravagance.

An old gentleman of my acquaintance, who took the intelligence of
the failure of a Joint-Stock Bank, in which some of his money was
invested, with a stoical mildness, worried his family all through a
long summer's day because one of them had torn (instead of cutting)
out the written leaves of his now useless bank-book. Of course, the
corresponding pages at the other end came out as well, and this
little unnecessary waste of paper (his private economy) chafed
him more than all the loss of his money. Envelopes fretted his
soul terribly when they first came in. The only way in which he
could reconcile himself to such waste of his cherished article
was by patiently turning inside out all that were sent to him,
and so making them serve again. Even now, though tamed by age, I
see him casting wistful glances at his daughters when they send
a whole inside of a half-sheet of note paper, with the three lines
of acceptance to an invitation, written on only one of the sides.

I am not above owning that I have this human weakness myself. String
is my foible. My pockets get full of little hanks of it, picked up
and twisted together, ready for uses that never come. I am seriously
annoyed if any one cuts the string of a parcel instead of patiently and
faithfully undoing it fold by fold. How people can bring themselves
to use india-rubber bands, which are a sort of deification of string,
as lightly as they do, I cannot imagine. To me an india rubber band
is a precious treasure. I have one which is not new--one that I
picked up off the floor nearly six years ago. I have really tried
to use it, but my heart failed me, and I could not commit the
extravagance.

Small pieces of butter grieve others. They cannot attend to conversation
because of the annoyance occasioned by the habit which some people
have of inva