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"

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. _

Read next: Chapter 1. The Master Of St. Hospital


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