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AMYNTOR AND ALMIRA. 

 (Translated from the Phonographic Journal for March.) 



The following most interesting and instructive piece is copied from 

 an old Magazine entitled the " Aurora," in which it appears as an 

 " Extract from a well known Author". We should he glad if any of 

 our readers can refer us to the original, or inform us who is the 

 author of so beautiful a description of that heaven upon earth — true 

 marriage, the union of congenial minds " in the Lord". [Ed. P. J.] 

 AMYNTOR AND ALMIRA. 



Having been invited to breakfast with a gentleman and lady who 

 had been man-ied several years, I was shown by the servant into a 

 neat little room and told to sit down till he should call his mistress, 

 who, he said, had that moment stept up stairs; the apparatus for the 

 breakfast was upon the table, and as my eye glanced over it I observed 

 a piece of paper carelessly folded up and thrown into one of the 

 bowls : a i)en and ink standing by, I immediately concluded that the 

 lady, who was remarkable for being a good economist, had been setting 

 down some little expences in a hurry, intending, perhaps, to enter 

 them at leisure into her day book. My curiosity prompted me to 

 unfold the paper, with a design of rallying her a little, when she 

 appeared, upon the exactness of her economy ; but judge of my sur- 

 prise, when instead of a family account, I met with the following 

 sensible, easy, and unaffecting little essay, which seems to have been 

 her morning meditation, just poured forth extempore from a heart 

 deeply touched with a sensibility of its own domestic bliss. 



As she did not come down immediately, 1 had leisure to peruse the 

 whole. I here transcribe it, and doubt not that your honest heart will 

 thrill with pleasure whilst you read it. 



"Almiras Essay on the Marriage State. 



"If ever we may be allowed to say that marriages are made in 

 heaven, it must be when the union is formed upon a disinterested 

 affection, a love that cannot be described even by those who have felt 

 it; my own heart tells me that it is beyond all description; sure 1 am 



