31 MAY 1924, Page 15

"THE ADEL PHI."

[To the Editor of the SPEcTaron.]

write as one who appreciates the Adelphi. I shall always feel grateful for No. 2, with its reminder that "all that human desire can imagine of the crystalline perfection of the ideal, . . . must be cracked and shattered," but that "secret harmony and high design lies within all human discomfiture." But one gnat troubles me. One little fly insists that his spiritual home is in the ointment, and gets there, and stays there. His scientific name is "The Chaplin Obsession." He is to be found even in No. 2: "My conviction that Charlie Chaplin is the greatest actor in the

world." But in No. 5 this insect becomes a pestilence. Indeed, a ravaging scourge and a plague of contradiction : "Chaplin is a great artist in the deepest sense of the word. He is not a great actor ; he belongs to another and higher order." I can offer no further comment. I would like to cure the Adelphi if I could, but I fear the disease is too deeply seated to be curable.—! am, Sir, &c., MiCij Oixxxx. 42 Ashdale Road, Terenure, Dublin.