iss
Sedgwick writes, "I have just finished, my dear brother, the second
perusal of your kind letter received to-day.... I do love my brothers
with perfect devotedness, and they are such brothers as may put
gladness into a sister's spirit.... Never, my dear Robert, did brother
and sister have a more ample experience of the purity of love, and the
sweet exchange of offices of kindness that binds hearts indissolubly
together."

There are three letters from Robert Sedgwick to show how he
reciprocated this affection. He says: "I can never be sufficiently
grateful to my Maker for having given me such a sister. If I had no
other sin to answer for than that of being so unworthy of her as I am,
it would be more than I can bear, and yet when I read your letters I
almost think that I am what I should be. I know I have a strong
aspiration to be such, and I am sure they make me better as well as
happier." Again, he says: "Thanks, thanks--how cold a word, my dearest
Kate, in return for your heart-cheering letter! It came to me in the
midst of my Nol Pros., special verdicts, depositions, protests,
business correspondence, etc., like a visitant from the skies. Indeed,
my dearest Kate, you may laugh at me if you will for saying so, but
there is something about your influence over me which seems to have
shuffled off this mortal coil of earthiness; to be unmixed with
anything that remains to be perfected; to be perfectly spiritualized,
and yet to retain its contact with every part of its subject.... Lest
I should talk foolishly on this subject, I will dismiss it, only
begging you not to forget how your letters cheer, rejoice, elevate,
renovate me."

Here is a love-letter from Theodore, her eldest brother: "Having this
moment perused your letter the third time, I could not help giving you
an answer to it, though there be nothing in it interrogative. Nor was
it meant to be tender or sentimental, or learned, but like all your
letters, it is so sweet, so excellent, so natural, so much without
art, and yet so much beyond art, that, old, cold, selfish, unthankful
as I am, the tears are in my eyes, and I thank God that I have such a
sister." Let us revenge ourselves upon these brother and sister lovers
by saying that perhaps they did not feel any more than some other
people, only they had a habit of expressing their feelings. If that
was all, we cannot deny that the habit was very beautiful.

Why did Miss Sedgwick never marry? We are not dis