Leaf 5 recto

I gradually made their acquaintance and the
acquaintance of Mac Sweeney the secretary, also secret-
-ary to the Royal Irish Academy who was paid [botún] 40
a year for his services. After I had returned home
I had a letter in Irish from O Neill Russell, the first
of many thousand Irish letters which I was destined
to receive, in which he said ar doigh go léigheán
tú Ruskin, is mór an truagh[?] nár b’eireannach é.!
So important of things was I at this time that I had
to inquire as to who Ruskin was!

I did not [meet] see him after this until I met
him in America, when I left Canada and came
to New York in 1890? where he got up a couple
of meetings and a supper for me. He was as