It is easier, however, to jeer at the honorable efforts of mankind than to arrange our own economies on a strictly satisfactory basis. Beyond a rational and healthy impulse to save on others rather than on ourselves, few of us can boast of much enlightenment in the matter, and even our one unerring guide is, in a measure, neutralized by the consistent determination of others to exert their own saving powers on us. The out-and-out miser is at best a creature of little penetration. He cheats himself sorely throughout life, and gains a sort of shabby posthumous distinction only when he is long past enjoying it. The true economist is, if we may believe Mrs. Oliphant, a _rara avis_, as exceptional in his way as the true genius. She endeavors, indeed, with much humility, to describe for us such a character in “The Curate in Charge;” but, while laying all possible stress on Mrs. St. John’s extraordinary proficiency, she does not for a moment venture to hint at the secret of her power. “I don’t pretend to know how she did it,” confesses this discriminating authoress, “any more than I can tell you how Shakespeare wrote ‘Hamlet.’ It was quite easy to him and to her, but if one knew how, one would be as great a poet as he was, as great an economist as she.” This is a degree of perfection to which we may not well aspire. Shakespeare and Mrs. St. John lie equally beyond our humble imitation. We do not even feel ambitious of such excellence, but cherish the more contentedly those few finely selected frugalities, those car-fares and match-stumps, those postage stamps and half sheets of paper, those dimly-lighted rooms and evaded custom-house duties, which, while they may not leave us much richer at the year’s end, have yet a distinct ethical value of their own, and, breathing an indescribable air of conscious rectitude, serve to keep us in harmony with ourselves. SCANDERBEG.