Letters to His Friends | Page 3

skin and without a
vestige of baggage, started forthwith on a walking tour along the west
coast of Ireland, arriving at Connemara in the course of the following
week. Forbes's dislike of sea voyages in after years may in part be
traced to this experience. During the greater part of the voyage across
Donegal Bay he was helpless from sea-sickness; his companion was
busily occupied in baling out the water to prevent the boat from
sinking.

The letters which Forbes wrote from school to members of his family
are a curious mixture of humour and religion. It was his keen sense of
humour which preserved him from becoming morbid. It was this same
sense of humour which helped to attract to him at the University men
on whom he eventually exercised a strong religious influence, but
whom religious conversation would have inevitably repelled.
In two letters written to one of his sisters from Rossall in 1886, the
following sentences occur. They show that he found time while at
school for a considerable amount of reading which was not connected
with his school work:
'You ask me to tell you what books I have been reading. Among others,
Longfellow's "Hiawatha" and "Evangeline," both exquisite; continually
the "In Memoriam," "Idylls of the King"; some of Buchanan, which I
scarcely recommend; M. Arnold, which I do most heartily recommend;
and Walt Whitman, the {6} great poet of democracy; "Confessions of
an English Opium Eater," by De Quincey, good in its way; G. Eliot and
Mrs. Browning, &c., &c. Perhaps you would like some of those. I read
Chas. Kingsley's "Andromeda"--it is really a splendid rhythmical piece
of hexameter--and some of his Life. I rather like pieces of his poetry,
and the one you sent me I liked.
'My only birthday advice is: Read more Longfellow. If you have any
writers, send me word, though I am sorry to say I can appreciate but
few. . . .'
Another letter, written the same year, is entirely composed of selections
from Tennyson's 'Princess,' which, he says, 'I have just read through.'
He ends, 'Mind you send me gleanings of Milton if you have time.' In
another, 'I have been reading a fair amount of Carlyle at present, as we
had an essay on "The influence of individuals on great movements of
religion, politics, and thought," for which I read especially Carlyle's
"Heroes and Hero Worship," and Emerson's "Representative Men," and
for which, I am glad to say, I not only got full marks, but the highest
maximum possible. Have read Tennyson's "Queen Mary." Am reading
"Harold." I liked the first very much, but the latter a great deal more.
The scene where Harold debates about telling a lie or the truth is very

fine. . . .' The rest of the letter is composed of quotations from 'Harold.'
In other letters he says, 'Get Emerson's "Essays" for me.' 'I send you
"Aurora Leigh." . . .'
He left Rossall in the summer of 1887, when he {7} was nearly twenty,
and entered Christ's College, Cambridge, in the following October. His
brother Armitage, now Dean of Westminster, was then fellow and dean
of Christ's College, and Forbes occupied the attic rooms over his.
The following notice by Dr. James, now headmaster of Rugby and
formerly headmaster of Rossall, appeared in 'The Rossallian' and is
reprinted here at his suggestion:
'Forbes Robinson came to Rossall in 1881. He was a member of a very
able family; an elder brother is Dean of Westminster; another is Charles
H. Robinson, Editorial Secretary of the S.P.G. and translator of part of
the Gospels into Hausa. He was a delicate boy, and lived for a year or
two in the headmaster's private house, from which he passed on into Mr.
Batson's. Rather shy and retiring in disposition, and unable to take
much part in games, he was not conspicuous in the School until he
reached the Sixth, and did not make friends as easily as some boys do.
But the few who knew him well recognised in him a deeply
affectionate if very sensitive nature, and saw how the religious side of it,
afterwards so conspicuous, was even then developing. His powers as a
classical scholar, though considerable, were not exceptional; they
enabled him to reach the Upper Sixth, but not to win a scholarship at
his entrance to the university, and I well remember advising him to
make theology, to which his inclinations were already drawing him, his
special subject at Cambridge. To this I knew he would bring not only
interest but power of reasoning and literary culture. He had won the
Divinity Prize of the School in 1885 and again in 1886, and the English
Essay Prize (for an essay on "The relative value of art, science, and
literature in