Letters to His Friends | Page 2

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 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