DOI Heft:
No. 54 (August, 1901)
DOI Artikel:Garstin, Norman: The work of Stanhope A. Forbes, A.R.A.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22775#0126
Stanhope Forbes, A.R.A.
The work of stanhope a.
FORBES, A.R.A. BY NORMAN
GARSTIN.
Mr. Stanhope Forbes comes of a great railway
family, whose daily life consists in arranging
intricate combinations and manoeuvres necessitat-
ing the extremes of forethought, and compelling
unflagging attention and precise obedience through-
out all the various grades of their army of workers.
They are in their own province lords over men
and controllers of forces and finances that might
make many princelings envious. It is hardly a
metaphor to say that Mr. Forbes has been
nourished by steam and electricity, and that iron
has entered into his soul in a sense not intended
by the sacred writer.
This is not mere rhe-
toric ; we are all moulded
by circumstances, though
their vast number and
complexity make it almost
impossible to pronounce
as to which has been a chief
factor in forming our char-
acters. But what I want
to say is, that Mr. Forbes
comes of a stock which
is essentially of the nine-
teenth century, full of its
movement and its restless
activity.
His nature is an unusual
compound of enthusiasm
and scepticism, of strong
opinions and generous de-
ference to the ideas of
others, the whole blended
and kept sane and whole-
some by an unfailing sense
of humour. This is an
elixir of good sense, a drop
of which, falling into some
wrong-headed argument or
exaggerated proposition,
explodes all the nonsense
and party feeling, and clears
the air of heat and vaporous
obscurity, and no one has
done so much to hold
the little community of
Newlyn together as Mr.
Stanhope Forbes. His
pretty home is the centre
XIV. No 54.—August, 1901.
of its hospitalities; it is a cottage on a high-lying
farm, where he lives as idyllic an existence as is
permitted to men so far removed from the Golden
Age.
Mr. Forbes possesses to a supreme degree the
capacity of appreciation; the spiral blossoms of a
hollyhock move him to admiration, but so does
the irresistible force of an ironclad as she sweeps,
cleaving great curves of foam, through the blue
waters of Mount’s Bay stretched out below his
home; so does a good story, a concert, or a smooth
road under his Dunlop tyres. All this helps us to
understand the man—for the artist is after all only
a man who deals in pleasurable emotions, and
reflects in some medium or another the waves of
feeling that fall upon him from the infinite sugges-
tions of nature. Each facet in the complicated
The work of stanhope a.
FORBES, A.R.A. BY NORMAN
GARSTIN.
Mr. Stanhope Forbes comes of a great railway
family, whose daily life consists in arranging
intricate combinations and manoeuvres necessitat-
ing the extremes of forethought, and compelling
unflagging attention and precise obedience through-
out all the various grades of their army of workers.
They are in their own province lords over men
and controllers of forces and finances that might
make many princelings envious. It is hardly a
metaphor to say that Mr. Forbes has been
nourished by steam and electricity, and that iron
has entered into his soul in a sense not intended
by the sacred writer.
This is not mere rhe-
toric ; we are all moulded
by circumstances, though
their vast number and
complexity make it almost
impossible to pronounce
as to which has been a chief
factor in forming our char-
acters. But what I want
to say is, that Mr. Forbes
comes of a stock which
is essentially of the nine-
teenth century, full of its
movement and its restless
activity.
His nature is an unusual
compound of enthusiasm
and scepticism, of strong
opinions and generous de-
ference to the ideas of
others, the whole blended
and kept sane and whole-
some by an unfailing sense
of humour. This is an
elixir of good sense, a drop
of which, falling into some
wrong-headed argument or
exaggerated proposition,
explodes all the nonsense
and party feeling, and clears
the air of heat and vaporous
obscurity, and no one has
done so much to hold
the little community of
Newlyn together as Mr.
Stanhope Forbes. His
pretty home is the centre
XIV. No 54.—August, 1901.
of its hospitalities; it is a cottage on a high-lying
farm, where he lives as idyllic an existence as is
permitted to men so far removed from the Golden
Age.
Mr. Forbes possesses to a supreme degree the
capacity of appreciation; the spiral blossoms of a
hollyhock move him to admiration, but so does
the irresistible force of an ironclad as she sweeps,
cleaving great curves of foam, through the blue
waters of Mount’s Bay stretched out below his
home; so does a good story, a concert, or a smooth
road under his Dunlop tyres. All this helps us to
understand the man—for the artist is after all only
a man who deals in pleasurable emotions, and
reflects in some medium or another the waves of
feeling that fall upon him from the infinite sugges-
tions of nature. Each facet in the complicated