The stories did not seem to me to touch life. They were plainly intended to have a bracing moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom they were aimed. They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.

We think we get a kind of vague apprehension of what London means from the top of a 'bus better than anywhere else.

She feels guilty for pampering him, and salves her conscience by bossily ordering him to go and fetch the clothes from the line[.]

They kick me in the face, beat me with the baton, whip me in me balls, beat me with a cat o’ nine like them name buckra massa […]