The “early-to-bed” plan was also impracticable.  It was not long before somebody came hammering at his “oak” just as he was getting to sleep, and next morning he told his mother that he really ought to have a glass of wine to give.  So she sent him a couple of bottles over, and that very night “Mr. Liddell and Mr. Gaisford” (junior) turned up.  “John was glad he had wine to offer, but they would not take any; they had come to see sketches.  John says Mr. Liddell looked at them with the eye of a judge and the delight of an artist, and swore they were the best sketches he had ever seen.  John accused him of quizzing, but he answered that he really thought them excellent.”  John said that it was the scenes which made the pictures; Mr. Liddell knew better, and spread the fame of them over the college.  Next morning “Lord Emlyn and Lord Ward called to look at the sketches,” and when the undergraduates had dropped in one after another, the Dean himself, even the terrible Gaisford, sent for the portfolio, and returned it with august approval.

Liddell, afterwards Dean of Christ Church; Newton, afterwards Sir Charles, of the British Museum; Acland, afterwards Sir Henry, the Professor of Medicine, thus became John Ruskin’s friends:  the first disputing with him on the burning question of Raphael’s art, but from the outset an admirer of “Modern Painters,” and always an advocate of its author; the second differing from him on the claims of Greek archaeology, but nevertheless a close acquaintance through many long years; and the third for half a century the best of friends and counsellors.

The dons of his college he was less likely to attract.  Dr. Buckland, the famous geologist, and still more famous lecturer and talker, took notice of him and employed him in drawing diagrams for lectures.  The Rev. Walter Brown, his college tutor, afterwards Rector of Wendlebury, won his good-will and remained his friend.  His private tutor, the Rev. Osborne Gordon, was always regarded with affectionate respect.  But the rest seem to have looked upon him as a somewhat desultory and erratic young genius, who might or might not turn out well.  For their immediate purpose, the Schools, and Church or State preferment, he seemed hardly the fittest man.

The gentlemen-commoners of Christ Church were a puzzle to Mrs. Ruskin; noblemen of sporting tastes, who rode and betted and drank, and got their impositions written “by men attached to the University for the purpose, at 1s.6d. to 2s.6d., so you have only to reckon how much you will give to avoid chapel.”  And yet they were very nice fellows.  If they began by riding on John’s back round the quad, they did not give him the cold shoulder—­quite the reverse.  He was asked everywhere to wine; he beat them all at chess; and they invaded him at all hours.  “It does little good sporting his oak,” wrote his mother, describing how Lord Desart and Grimston climbed in through his window while he was hard at work.  “They say midshipmen and Oxonians have more lives than a cat, and they have need of them if they run such risks.”