How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
She is one of God's women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist—and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so sceptical and selfish. (14.52)
Van Helsing really thinks highly of Mina, doesn't he? She represents a feminine ideal: She's intelligent, but also submissive and nurturing.
Quote #8
I suppose there is something in woman's nature that makes a man free to break down before her and express his feelings on the tender or emotional side without feeling it derogatory to his manhood. (17.56)
Good, manly Englishmen are only allowed to break down and cry in front of a woman. And then only if it's a sweet, nurturing, motherly woman like Mina.
Quote #9
We women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above smaller matters when the mother-spirit is invoked. (17.59)
Mina makes a generalization about all women here—she claims that all women are, somewhere deep down, very nurturing and maternal. They just have to have the right inspiration for that "mother-spirit" to come out.