The Athenaeum, 4687 (27 Feb 1920) 285
Sir, – The Phoenix Society, which has recently produced a play of Webster and a play of Dryden, is appealing to its subscribers, of whom I am one, to endeavour to secure more subscribers at reduced rates for the remaining three performances of the season. 1 It appears that the receipts from subscriptions have been inadequate to the expenses of production.
The so-called cultivated and civilized class is not expected to relieve the necessities of either literature or painting. It is assumed that poetry only pays if it is bought by thousands of people one has never heard of; 2 and that painting only pays if it is bought by some rich people whom one is not otherwise anxious to know; but a Society like the Phoenix can appeal only to the intelligentsia, and at a price quite within the intelligentsia’smeans. Here then was an opportunity for the intelligentsiato declare its convictions: but the sounds are forced, and the notes very few. 3
Whether the performances have been good or bad has nothing to do with the matter. Apathy is more flagitious than abuse; we can almost condone the offence of Mr. William Archer, whom we never supposed to be a member of the intelligentsia; we cannot excuse the torpor of people who would despise Mr. Archer. 4 The performance of Dryden’s play seemed to me praiseworthy, and the actors had devoted hard work to a production which certainly could not add to their popular notoriety. 5 But the point is that Dryden is a great poet and a great dramatist, and the Civilized Class has not supported the people who would support him, the Civilized Class has not supported Dryden against Archer. If, at the next performance of the Phoenix, the Civilized Class has not taken advantage of the reduced rates, I shall no longer be able to stifle my suspicion that the Civilized Class is a myth.
I am, Sir, Your obliged obedient servant, t. s. eliot
