fteen months' absence from home
altogether, great part of which deserted papa would spend in travelling.

John went into residence in Peckwater. At first he spent every evening
with his mother and went to bed, as Mr. Dale had told him, at ten. After
a few days Professor Powell asked him to a musical evening; he excused
himself, and explained why. The Professor asked to be introduced,
whereupon says his mother, "I shall return the call, but make no
visiting acquaintances."

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 regard