How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Mistress Mary went a step nearer to the robin and looked at him very hard.
"I'm lonely," she said.
She had not known before that this was one of the things which made her feel sour and cross. She seemed to find it out when the robin looked at her and she looked at the robin. (4.123-125)
Ben Weatherstaff tells Mary that the robin hangs around because he likes company—and without company, he gets lonely. This discovery that therobingets lonely helps Mary to realize that she does, too. For someone who spends a lot of her time thinking about herself and what she wants, she doesn't seem to understand herself much. It's only when she compares herself with the living things she sees around her that she starts to recognize what she needs in this world.
Quote #5
[Mary] did not know that [going outside] was the best thing she could have done, and she did not know that, when she began to walk quickly or even run along the paths and down the avenue, she was stirring her slow blood and making herself stronger by fighting with the wind which swept down from the moor. She ran only to make herself warm, and she hated the wind which rushed at her face and roared and held her back as if it were some giant she could not see. But the big breaths of rough fresh air blown over the heather filled her lungs with something which was good for her whole thin body and whipped some red color into her cheeks and brightened her dull eyes when she did not know anything about it. (5.1)
It's interesting to get this divided point of view on Mary's actions. By running around outside, Mary isn't starting a new exercise routine on purpose, but even so, the narrator wants to make sure that we understand that outdoor exercise is good, no matter why you do it. Mary's instincts lead her in the best direction for her, even without input from her conscious mind. It's like that totally self-contradicting One Direction song: Mary doesn't know she's exercising, which is what makes her exercise.
Quote #6
"I smell something nice and fresh and damp," she said.
"That's th' good rich earth," he answered, digging away. "It's in a good humor makin' ready to grow things. It's glad when plantin' time comes. It's dull in th' winter when it's got nowt to do. In th' flower gardens out there things will be stirrin' down below in th' dark. Th' sun's warmin' 'em. You'll see bits o' green spikes stickin' out o' th' black earth after a bit." (7.34-35)
One part of Frances Hodgson Burnett's claim that we humans are all a part of nature seems to be that nature is also a lot like us. That is, the book often implies that different elements of our environment think and feel the way humans do. There's that scene in Chapter 25 told from the robin's perspective, and there's also this moment, when Ben Weatherstaff describes the earth as though it wants to be producing plants.