To My Sister - Charles to Mary Lamb.

If from my lips some angry accents fell,
Peevish complaint, or harsh reproof unkind,
'twas but the error of a sickly mind,
And troubled thoughts,clouding the purer well,
And waters clear, of Reason; and for me,
Let this my verse the poor atonement be,
My verse, which thou to praise wast ever inclined
Too highly, and with a partial eye to see
No blemish: thou to me didst ever shew
Fondest affection, and woulds't oftimes lend
An ear to the desponding lay,
Weeping my sorrows with me, who repay
But ill the mighty debt of love I owe,
Mary, to thee, my sister and my friend.

with these lines, and with that sister's kindest remembrances to C - I conclude
Yours sincerely,
Lamb.

Charles called Mary his best friend. Their devotion to each other was genuine and abiding.
No brother and sister in history are more inseparably linked.
To Lamb their life as old bachelor and maid was " a sort of double singleness."