Letters to His Friends | Page 2

which is inserted on p. 4 was taken just before he went
to Rossall. He was then a shy retiring boy, fonder of reading than of
athletic exercise. One who was in the same house with him at Rossall,
and who is now vicar of a parish in Lancashire, writes:

'His life at Rossall was not an outwardly eventful one. Not being
athletic, he lived rather apart from and above the rest of us in a world of
books. The walls of his study used to be almost covered with extracts,
largely, I think, from the poets, copied on to scraps of paper and pinned
up all round, partly to be learnt by heart and partly, I think, for
companionship. He was much older than the rest of us whose years
were the same as his. His school life was a time of retirement and
preparation for the wider life among men at Cambridge. Though my
memory of him as a quiet studious member of the house, more often
alone than not, and quite happy to be alone so long as his books were
near him, is very distinct, I can recall almost nothing of the nature of
incident or about which one can write.'
The present headmaster of Marlborough, who was {3} also a
contemporary at Rossall, writes in a letter to the editor of this memoir:
'Your brother was a great recluse at Rossall, and I much doubt whether
you would get any great amount of information about him from
Rossallians. I knew him because we were both interested in reading,
and I owed a good deal to his influence. . . . You will find, I believe,
that his Cambridge days show him in a far clearer light than his school
days. I know that when I saw him at Cambridge I realised with pleasure
that he was a welcomed visitor in the rooms of very various types of
undergraduates, whereas his circle at school had been very limited, and
most boys no doubt regarded him as quite "out of it." This is of course
to some extent the fault of the athletic standards of our schools, but I
also think that he himself developed a great deal socially at Cambridge.'
A sketch of Forbes, by Dr. James, written for 'The Rossallian,' will be
found at the close of this chapter. Dr. Tancock, who succeeded Dr.
James as headmaster of Rossall a year before Forbes left, writes:
'When I was appointed to Rossall in 1886, I found him a member of the
upper sixth form. . . . He always gave me the impression of an
earnest-minded, hard-working boy, with a deep sense of duty. It was
rather suggested to my mind sometimes, possibly erroneously, that as a
younger boy he had felt himself misunderstood, and a certain reserve
was the consequence, not perhaps unnaturally. He was already much

interested in theological work. . . . It {4} has been a great pleasure to
me in later years to hear of his excellent work at Christ's and the strong
influence he exerted over undergraduates. It was quite the natural result
of the qualities I saw in him at school, provided once his reserve could
be broken.'
[Illustration: Forbes Robinson (1880)]
Though of Irish descent he only once visited Ireland. This was during
his summer holidays in 1884, when he travelled round a good part of
the north and west coasts. The only adventure of special interest was
his unintended voyage across the Bay of Donegal, which was nearly
attended with fatal consequences. He and his brother, the editor of this
memoir, started in a small open sailing boat from the harbour of
Killybegs, intending to return within a few minutes; but no sooner had
they got outside the harbour than they were caught in a squall, which
rapidly developed into a gale, and made it impossible to turn the boat or
head it for the shore, owing to the immediate risk of swamping. The
only means of securing momentary safety was to head the boat out into
the Atlantic, but as the nearest land in this direction was the coast of
America, the prospect was far from cheerful. Eventually the boat was
turned a few points further south, in the direction of land which could
not be seen, but which was known to lie about fifteen miles away on
the other side of the Bay of Donegal. After having been nearly
swamped many times, and running with bare poles, owing to the
violence of the gale, the boat arrived at length at Bundoran. As this
place was distant some sixty miles from Killybegs, {5} it seemed
wearisome to return by land, and a return by sea was out of the question.
Accordingly, Forbes and the writer, drenched to the