Chapter 1 No.1

This etext prepared from a reprint of a version published in 1911.

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"

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.

The Haven, Fowey.

February 16th, 1911.

"And a little Child shall lead them."-ISAIAH xi. 6.