The kind of submission or resignation that he showed was that of a man who was tired out. I sometimes derived an impression, from his manner or from a whispered word or two which escaped him, that he pondered over the question whether he might have been a better man under better circumstances. But he never justified himself by a hint tending that way, or tried to bend the past out of its eternal shape.
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 56. When Pip visits Magwitch in prison, he discovers a weary, worn-down man resigned to his fate. Magwitch doesn’t engage in self-pity or justify turning to a life of crime. But he poses the question whether he would have led a better life under less unjust social circumstances. Magwitch’s legal plight puts English justice in the dock.