This well-known quotation by Frances Cornford (1886–1960) helped to perpetuate the image of Brooke as an ineffectual ‘beautiful’ poet, writing his naïve war poetry before going to his own death and being resurrected as a hero. Yet the quotation above could easily refer to the opposite of ineffectuality; a determined and highly motivated character who was ‘magnificently unprepared’ for a life which promised to be harder and more frustrating than he had originally imagined. Biographical material has revealed Brooke as an achiever by nature, the sort who was regarded as an intellectual and a leader by his associates. He won a fellowship to King's College, Cambridge (1913), and took over his father's responsibilities as a housemaster at Rugby when he was only 22. It is not easy to control fifty privileged boys, yet Rupert Brooke – not quite from the same social class as his charges – managed this difficult task for two months. He was active as a supporter of Cambridge drama, a favoured protégé of Edward Marsh, and a friend of pioneer free-thinkers and modernists such as Virginia Woolf. He was also political to a far greater extent than his Georgian colleagues, so that the mosquito bite in 1915 killed a paid-up member of the Fabian socialist movement as well as a poet.

His famed attractiveness has stood in the way of an unbiased appreciation of the poetry, yet even his photogenic good looks were short-lived and something of an illusion. Childhood photographs show a plump, unprepossessing boy, while later military pictures show a hard, determined expression redolent of the typical young officer. Brooke was adept at fitting into the role expected of him; compare the ‘poet’ images taken by Sherrill Schell in 1913 with the Royal Naval Division photograph provided in the Hassall biography opposite page 512.

On the surface, Brooke was stylish, entertaining, and a publicist 's dream. He magnified his appeal by associating with those whose approval naturally brought him into contact with movers and shakers in the arts and political worlds. He was not prepared for littleness, but for greatness.