The Spectator, 152 (8 June 1934) 887 1
Sir, – Mr. Verschoyle’s amiable review of The Rockin your issue of June 1st leaves me wondering what he thinks that the production was intended to be. 2 The “play” makes no pretence of being a “contribution to English dramatic literature”: it is a revue. My only seriously dramatic aim was to show that there is a possible rôlefor the Chorus: an aim which would have failed completely without the aid of a perfectly trained group of speakers like Miss Fogerty’s. 3 And to consider The Rockas an “official apologia” for church-building is to lay a weight upon it which this rock was never intended to bear. 4 It is not an apologia for the campaign, but an advertisement. If I had meant to write an apologia – I do not know whether many other people besides Mr. Verschoyle think that one is needed – I should have written a prose pamphlet.
I also wonder what Mr. Verschoyle wanted, when he speaks of my “reluctance to commit myself to logical justification” and my “unwillingness to substantiate my beliefs.” 5 He does not make matters clearer by referring to “despair of the Church’s attitude towards such questions as Housing and Population” – a despair which we are to believe has helped to convert people to Communism or Fascism. 6 Let me recommend for reading, to Communists, Fascists, and Mr. Verschoyle, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s speech at the Guildhall on March 12th, on the subject of Housing. 7 And as for Population, would Mr. Verschoyle have wished me to tax my poetic resources by making my Chorus declaim about Birth-Control?
In conclusion, may I repeat what every author knows: that criticism is only valuable to an author when it is particularized?
— I am, Sir, etc., t. s. eliot the criterion, 24 russell square, w. c.1.
