Alfred Forbes

Alfred Forbes was an art afficionado from Charleston, South Carolina. In 1914, he attended an exhibition of post-impressionist European art at Marshlands Plantation. He was interested in the works of Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, and Paul Gauguin. He was also openly scornful of American and German culture, and regretted that the leading Central Powers nations were too formidable to be laughed off. He and Anne Colleton, sponsor of the exhibition, commiserated on the recent defeat the United States Navy had dealt the Royal Navy in the Sandwich Islands.

Otherwise, Forbes attempted to attract Colleton to himself sexually by a pseudo-intellectual expansion on a theme of contrasts. For her part, Colleton found Forbes to be a dandy (though of course she would not be so rude as to say so), wondered how he had managed to evade military service at the outset of the Great War, and, though she did concede that he was a good-looking man, easily resisted his charms. Forbes eventually gave up his attempts at seduction and moved on to other pursuits.