Quote 1
"I’m sure we have all on us a great deal to be grateful for – a great deal, if we did but know it. Ah!" ["all on us" in the original]
Mrs. Corney shook her head mournfully, as if deploring the mental blindness of paupers who did not know it, and, thrusting a silver spoon (private property) into the inmost recesses of a two-ounce tin tea-caddy, proceeded to make the tea. (23.3-4)
Mrs. Corney is very pleased with her piety, moral strength and sense of gratitude – not hard to do on a cold night if one has a warm fire in a comfortable room with a cup of tea. You know the expression "to be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth?" Yeah, that’s Mrs. Corney here. And what’s she doing with that silver spoon? She’s delving into the "inmost recesses" of a "two-ounce" container of tea – if it’s only two ounces, she doesn’t have to dig very far to get to its "inmost recesses." So why did Dickens put it that way? Because that’s about the extent of Mrs. Corney’s reflections – they don’t dig deeper than the surface, and she can’t see past her own her own immediate needs and desires.