TO THE GENTLE READER.
In a former book of mine, Sir John Constantine, I expressed (perhaps extravagantly) my faith in my fellows and in their capacity to treat life as a noble sport. In Brother Copas I try to express something of that corellative scorn which must come sooner or later to every man who puts his faith into practice.. I have that faith still; but that:
He who would love his fellow men
Must not expect too much of them"
He who would love his fellow men
Must not expect too much of them"
This is good counsel if bad rhyme. I can only hope that both the faith and the scorn are sound at the core.
For the rest, I wish to state that St. Hospital is a society which never existed. I have borrowed for it certain features from the Hospital of St. Cross, near Winchester. I have invented a few external and all the internal ones. My "College of Noble Poverty" harbours abuses from which, I dare to say, that nobler institution is entirely free. St Hospital has no existence at all outside of my imagining.
ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH.
ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH.
The Haven, Fowey.
February 16th, 1911.
"And a little Child shall lead them."—ISAIAH xi. 6.