Quote 4
"I am so glad you are come; it will quite pleasant living here now with a companion. To be sure it is pleasant at any time; for Thornfield is a fine old hall, rather neglected of late years perhaps, but still it is a respectable place; yet you know in winter time, one feels dreary quite alone, in the best quarters. I say alone—Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and John and his wife are very decent people; but then you see they are only servants, and one can’t converse with them on terms of equality: one must keep them at due distance, for fear of losing one’s authority." (1.11.42)
Mrs. Fairfax is glad to have Jane at Thornfield because they’ll be able to socialize together. Later in this chapter, we’ll learn that Mrs. Fairfax is the housekeeper and household manager for Thornfield; as such, she is above the regular servants but below the master of the house, and there’s hardly anyone she can talk to without compromising her position.
It’s a little bit like being a camp counselor: you’re living with the people you’re in charge of, but you can’t start hanging out with them or they won’t do what you say anymore. You can only hang out with the other camp counselors.
Quote 5
"You have nothing to do with the master of Thornfield, further than to receive the salary he gives you for teaching his protégée, and to be grateful for such respectful and kind treatment as, if you do your duty, you have a right to expect at his hands. Be sure that is the only tie he seriously acknowledges between you and him: so don’t make him the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and so forth. He is not of your order: keep to your caste; and be too self-respecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is not wanted and would be despised." (2.2.2)
Here Jane’s trying to sort out her relationship to Rochester, and it’s a lot harder because she’s developed several different relationships to him that aren’t entirely compatible. She’s reminding herself that (1) she’s his employee, (2) she’s lower-class than he is, and (3) he hasn’t necessarily shown a serious romantic interest in her.
But that highly rational assessment really doesn’t cover the instant connection they made in the forest on their first meeting, when he leaned on her shoulder to limp back to his horse and she began taking care of him.
Quote 6
"I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead."
"A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She comes from the other world—from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I’d touch you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf!—but I’d as soon offer to take hold of a blue ignis fatuus light in a marsh." (2.7.21-22)
As usual Rochester is exaggerating quite a bit, but his suggestion that Jane is able to move between different worlds in a strange and uncanny way seems just about right. After all, Gateshead, Lowood, and Thornfield have practically been different planets.
(An ignis fatuus, or "false fire," is a little light you see in the distance when you’re lost in a swamp, but it turns out to be swamp gas on fire or something like that instead of a lamp in a cottage that could lead you to safety. Ironically, later in the novel, Jane finds Moor House by following a light that she thinks is an ignis fatuus, but it turns out to be a lamp in a cottage.)