Quote from Middlemarch

This is a handwritten note which was kept in George Eliot’s friend, Cara Bray’s, sewing box. The quote is from Middlemarch and reads, “They were not thin hands, or small hands; but powerful, feminine, maternal hands.”

This quote is made all the more poignant considering that Cara was unable to have her own children, but adopted a child, Elinor. Charles Bray fathered several children by a mistress, Hannah Steane, but Elinor was the only one the Brays adopted. Sadly Elinor died of consumption aged 21 in 1865.