How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
She was as blind to his inward troubles as he to hers; she had not yet learned those hidden conflicts in her husband which claim our pity. She had not yet listened patiently to his heart-beats, but only felt that her own was beating violently. (2.20.25)
Dorothea is ordinarily the most sympathetic and compassionate character in this novel – she's one of the few characters who can "hear the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat" – but only most of the time. After her marriage to Casaubon, she still hasn't figured him out. He's got his own problems, his own "hidden conflicts" which, if she recognized them, she would "pity." But she's too wrapped up in her own problems to think about what his might be.
The other interesting thing about this passage is that the narrator changes to the first person. Instead of saying that Casaubon's "hidden conflicts" would "claim her pity," the narrator says that they would "claim our pity." Why does she do this? Well, the implication is that we all should pity Casaubon's "hidden conflicts." In fact, the implication is still wider than that – it suggests that we all should be aware that everyone has "hidden conflicts" that would "claim our pity" if we knew about them. So this is another one of those instances in which the narrator switches abruptly from the particular (Dorothea's relationship to Casaubon) to the universal (everyone's relationship with other people).
Quote #5
We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves (2.21.45).
Here the narrator explains again why we don't feel sympathy and compassion as readily as we should: we're too wrapped up in ourselves. We assume that the "world" is there to nurse us (with an "udder" – isn't that a great image?) and us alone. Here's another spot where the narrator uses the first person plural: she says, "We are all of us born." It draws the reader in, and makes the claim that we (the reader), the author, the characters, and everyone are all in the same boat together.
But are we destined to remain in "moral stupidity" our whole lives? Maybe not. Just because we're "born" in "moral stupidity" doesn't mean we have to stay that way. Just as babies get weaned after a certain point and learn to feed themselves (and, hopefully, to see their parents as individuals, rather than as walking sources of food), maybe someday "we" will "all of us" learn how to think of other people in the "world" as having their own problems, rather than being so stuck on our own.
Quote #6
[…] it had been easier […] than to conceive with that distinctness which is no longer reflection but feeling – an idea wrought back to the directness of sense, like the solidity of objects – that he had an equivalent centre of self, whence the lights and shadows must always fall with a certain difference. (2.21.45)
It's easier for Dorothea to be angry and resentful towards Casaubon than to "conceive" of the "idea" that he has an inner life that is just as important to him as hers is to her. His "centre of self" is "equivalent" to hers, though the ratio of "lights" to "shadows" (which could be happiness and sorrow?) might be different.