Quote 1
Because his brother was a little eccentric—though he is not half so eccentric as a good many people—he didn't like to have him visible about his house, and sent him away to some private asylum-place: though he had been left to his particular care by their deceased father, who thought him almost a natural. And a wise man he must have been to think so! Mad himself, no doubt. (14.53)
Here, Miss Betsey is describing Mr. Dick's back-story. His own brother shuts Mr. Dick up in a mental institution because he doesn't "like to have [Mr. Dick] visible about his house." In other words, Mr. Dick's brother is too ashamed of him to allow Mr. Dick to continue living with him. Does Mr. Dick's role in this novel offer explicit criticisms of the treatment of the mentally ill in Dickens's day and age? Or is the object of this critique the general importance of family loyalty?
Quote 2
You have chosen a very pretty and a very affectionate creature. It will be your duty, and it will be your pleasure too—of course I know that; I am not delivering a lecture—to estimate her (as you chose her) by the qualities she has, and not by the qualities she may not have. (44.63)
Miss Betsey gives David some sage advice here about how to handle Dora. Now that David realizes that Dora can't be serious, he starts to feel disappointed. Miss Betsey basically instructs him that, if he can't be with the one he loves (his ideal partner, a fantasy who he has yet to identify as Agnes), he should love the one he's with. What lessons is Miss Betsey drawing on from her own life to impart this moral? And is disappointment something that you can just choose not to feel?