Leo Tolstoy

“ All were ordinary people, like everybody else,-- Martin Semyonovitches, Piotr Piotrovitches, Marya Ivanovnas,--people who did not consider themselves unhappy, but who regarded themselves, and who actually were, just like the rest of mankind. ”

“ In another lodging lay a woman in puerperal fever. A woman who lived by vice was rocking the baby, and giving her her bottle; and for two days, she had been unremitting in her attention. The baby girl, on being left an orphan, was adopted into the family of a tailor, who had three children of his own. So there remained those unfortunate idle people, officials, clerks, lackeys out of place, beggars, drunkards, dissolute women, and children, who cannot be helped on the spot with money, but whom it is necessary to know thoroughly, to be planned and arranged for. ”

“ Our first impression was, that the greater part of the dwellers here were working people and very good people at that.
We found more than half the inhabitants at work: laundresses bending over their tubs, cabinet-makers at their lathes, cobblers on their benches. The narrow rooms were full of people, and cheerful and energetic labor was in progress. ”