How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
A traditional pastime is to be distinguished from a mere revival in no more striking feature than in this, that while in the revival all is excitement and fervour, the survival is carried on with a stolidity and absence of stir which sets one wondering why a thing that is done so perfunctorily should be kept up at all. (2.4.15)
We love Hardy's wordplay, as he contrasts "revival" and "survival." The revival of a custom is exciting while the survival of a custom is done by habit. Hardy's final question here, whether or not customs done without much thought should continue, can be applied to the entire society of Egdon.
Quote #5
On Egdon there was no absolute hour of the day. The time at any moment was an umber of varying doctrines professed by the different hamlets, some of them having originally grown up from a common root, and then become divided by secession, some having been alien from the beginning. (2.5.6)
The absence of definite, or exact, time in Egdon is hugely important in terms of the novel's overall themes. Egdon is cast as a place almost outside of time, but it's also a place with too much time. It can be a different time at "any moment," which implies that the heath is kind of chaotic.
Quote #6
To argue upon the possibility of culture before luxury to the bucolic world may be to argue truly, but it is an attempt to disturb a sequence to which humanity had been long accustomed. (2.3.5)
Hardy references the idea that history follows a certain logical progression and that people and places tend to "develop" in a similar way.