k, 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)]