Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: Forbes Robinson]
LETTERS TO HIS FRIENDS
BY
FORBES ROBINSON
LATE FELLOW OF CHRIST'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
AND EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF SOUTHWELL
EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTORY NOTICE
BY HIS BROTHER CHARLES
SECOND EDITION
PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION BY
SPOTTISWOODE & CO. LTD., LONDON. 1904
NOTE
This volume has been printed for private circulation at the request of
many of Forbes Robinson's personal friends. The first edition having
been exhausted, a second has been prepared, in which are included six
additional letters (cf. pp. 151, 154, 164, 166, 167, 182). Copies of
this volume will be supplied (price 2s. 6d. post free) to all who
desire to obtain them, on application to the Rev. Canon Charles H.
Robinson, Hill Brow, Woking. The volume of College and Ordination
Addresses which will be published by Longmans in about two months' time
can be ordered through any bookseller.
_October_ 1904.
[Transcriber's note: The book contains a number of short Greek phrases,
all of which have been transliterated according to Project Gutenberg's
"Greek How-To". A more detailed transliteration note follows each
paragraph or article where the Greek phrase occurs.]
[Transcriber's note: Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers
enclosed in curly braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page
breaks occurred in the original book, in accordance with Project
Gutenberg's FAQ-V-99. For its Index, a page number has been placed
only at the start of that section. In the HTML version of this book,
page numbers are placed in the left margin.]
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY SKETCH
CHAPTER. PAGE
I. SCHOOLDAYS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
II. LIFE AS AN UNDERGRADUATE AT CAMBRIDGE . . . . 10
III. WORK AT CAMBRIDGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
IV. THE LAST FEW MONTHS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
V. TWO APPRECIATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
LETTERS TO HIS FRIENDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
ILLUSTRATIONS
Forbes Robinson . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece
Forbes Robinson (1880)
Forbes Robinson (1887)
{1}
INTRODUCTORY SKETCH
CHAPTER I
SCHOOLDAYS
Forbes Robinson was born on November 13, 1867, in the vicarage of
Keynsham, a village in Somerset lying between Bristol and Bath. He was
the eleventh child in a family of thirteen, of whom eight were sons and
five daughters. His parents were both from the north of Ireland, and
his Christian name had been his mother's surname. The motto attached
to his father's family crest was 'Non nobis solum sed toti mundo nati.'
Before he was three years old his father moved to Liverpool and became
incumbent of St. Augustine's, Everton. He died before Forbes was
thirteen, but the memory of his holy life remained as an abiding
influence. Thus he writes of him in 1903:
'The old memories form a kind of sacred history urging me onwards and
upwards. I like to feel that I reap the prayers and thanksgivings of
my father, that God blesses the son of such a father. The same work,
the same God, the same promises, the same hope, the same sure and
certain reward. I thank God and take courage.'
{2} As a boy he was never robust and might even be regarded as
delicate. After attending one or two private schools he was entered,
at the age of twelve, at Liverpool College, where five of his brothers
had been. When his father died in February 1881, the house in
Liverpool was given up and Forbes was sent to Rossall. He continued at
Rossall till he entered Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1887.
The photograph 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 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 education") in the latter year.
{8}
'He went up to Christ's, Cambridge, in 1887, and at once addressed
himself to his favourite study. What strides he was making in it were
apparent at once from the extraordinary series of distinctions which he
won--a scholarship at the college, the Carus Greek Testament Prize for
undergraduates, the Jeremie Septuagint Prize, a first class in the
Theological Tripos, the Burney Theological Essay Prize, the Carus Prize
for Bachelors, the Crosse Divinity Scholarship, and the Hulsean Prize
all fell to him between 1888 and 1893, and finally in 1896 he was
elected to a Fellowship at Christ's, where he had already been
Theological Lecturer for a year.
'His essay which gained the Burney Prize in 1891 was on "The Authority
of our Lord in its bearing upon the Interpretation of the Old
Testament." He printed it in 1893 under the title of "The
Self-limitation of the Word of God as manifested in the Incarnation."
With characteristic modesty he says in his preface: "I can claim but
little of the work as strictly original." This is far too deprecatory;
the essay is a singularly lucid statement and attempted solution of a
most difficult theological problem, in which all who believe in the
Deity of Christ must be deeply interested, and I can bear personal
testimony to its helpfulness. It was only the other day that I was
reading it afresh, for I had just recovered it, when I feared that the
copy he gave me was hopelessly lost and irreplaceable, from South
Africa, where a friend to whom I had lent it had taken it among his
books. Among Forbes Robinson's later activities were a work on the
Coptic Apocryphal Gospels ("the subject," he wrote to me, "was so
technical and uninteresting that I did not send you a copy"), and the
editing of a Sahidic fragment of the Gospels.
'But his value to Cambridge and to his college lay mainly in the
influence for good which he was able to exert over undergraduates.
Again and again I have been told {9} there how great this was; and it
was no little achievement for one whose very modesty and
humble-mindedness must have made it difficult. But his heart was in
the work, and in the maintaining of Christian influences in university
life. It is hard to over-estimate the loss which his death at so early
an age implies alike to students of theology and to those among whom he
was more immediately working. But he has left us the example of a
simple and devoted life and the consecration of great and growing
powers to his Master's service. "God buries His workmen, but carries
on His work."'
{10}