A letter from George Bernard Shaw

            16th June 1948

Dear Mr [sic] Digby,
      By all means quote as much as you please of my correspondence with H[orace] P[lunkett]. There were more interesting letters than the one you copied for me; but he may not have kept them.
      I do not envy you your job. Plunkett was a puzzle. He devoted his life to the service of his fellow creatures collectively; and personally he disliked them all. He kept open house in Foxrock for all visitors of any note, rich or poor, to Ireland; and he hated all his guests. He remained a bachelor for the sake of Lady Fingal[l], and was unquestionably in love with her; yet I never felt convinced that he quite liked her. He took the chair as a matter of course at all meetings in which he was interested. I have, perhaps, more experience of public meetings than most people; and I can testify that he ranked first among the very worst chairmen on earth. He went round the Congested Districts to persuade Irish farmers whose farms were uneconomic to move into better holdings: a task which would have taxed the persuasive powers of a barrister earning £20,000 a year, and took with him small schoolmasters of the £150 type, who could only make Plunkett's offer in the baldest terms, and when it was refused say no more than "Well, you are a very foolish man". Except within his own class he was a bad mixer.
      And yet with all this against him he was an amiable man whom nobody could dislike, a highly talented writer with a sense of humor [sic], great political intelligence, and tireless public spirit, the greatest political Irishman of his time.
      I liked him thoroughly and always stayed at Foxrock when I went to Ireland even after I found out that his hatred of his guests probably included me.
      I repeat, you will find it hard to do justice to a man of such high virtues hampered by so many trivial contradictions.
                        G.Bernard Shaw