"That's not in my character.

I never do harm to anyone.
This"-- he touched the papers--"is not delicate, but it does harm to no one.

If you have no money you must have papers; they stand between you and starvation.

Society, has an excellent eye for the helpless--it never treads on people unless they 're really down." He looked at Shelton.
"You 've made me what I am, amongst you," he seemed to say; "now put up with me!" "But there are always the workhouses," Shelton remarked at last.
"Workhouses!" returned Ferrand; "certainly there are--regular palaces: I will tell you one thing: I've never been in places so discouraging as your workhouses; they take one's very heart out." "I always understood," said Shelton coldly; "that our system was better than that of other countries." Ferrand leaned over in his chair, an elbow on his knee, his favourite attitude when particularly certain of his point.
"Well," he replied, "it 's always permissible to think well of your own country.

But, frankly, I've come out of those places here with little strength and no heart at all, and I can tell you why." His lips lost their bitterness, and he became an artist expressing the result of his experience.