1894-05-04 to William Archer

Autograph letter signed, British Library, 224 words

[Edited for paragraph breaks, capitalization, spelling and punctuation.]

8 Kings Bench Walk, Temple, London

Hogarth Club, 36, Dover Street, W.

[Friday, 4 May 1894]

My dear Archer

In the first place let me thank you for your letter to the Chronicle. You are a very good friend.

In the second let me congratulate you on your excellent article, which I have just read, in the Fortnightly.  Truly an excellent article which I have read with much pleasure.

What you preach is true, in a way; but I am afraid the serious drama is an impossibility. I should dearly like to write a play but I know the nearer I approached my ideal the greater would be the failure. If I could only think that a play that pleased me, would run 50 nights, 30 nights, 20 nights. The Wild Duck would not run a week to paying business even at the St. James’s Theatre. All this is very sad.

Yours always

George Moore

If The Second Mrs. T had been more logical it would have failed. The novelist writes in complete sympathy with the public mind. In the novel my mind is concentric with the public mind; in the play my mind is eccentric with the public mind. That is what I feel.