“It is easy to say how we love new friends, and what we think of them, but words can never trace out all the fibers that knit us to the old.”

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Meaning

This is about the difference between chosen friendships and the older ties that shape a life quietly over time. The line suggests that new bonds are easier to describe, while old ones are deeper, harder to explain, and woven into memory and habit. It fits a moment of looking back at people who have stayed.

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Originally said in English.

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About George Eliot

English novelist, poet, journalist, and translator, Victorian era

George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, an English novelist, poet, journalist, and translator of the Victorian era. She was one of the leading writers of her time. She wrote seven novels, including Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Felix Holt, the Radical, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda. Her fiction is known for realism, psychological depth, a strong sense of place, and close attention to the countryside.

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Books by George Eliot

The Mill on the Floss

1800

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Silas Marner

2003

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Adam Bede

1859

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Middlemarch

1999

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Felix Holt, the radical

1800

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