One may begin to believe that that degeneracy
which the prevalence of jazz, lip-sticks, and ballet costumes adapted to
the subway is supposed to indicate, is a real menace when one discovers
that "Penrod" or "Seventeen" has ceased to be read!

We may read Mark Twain and wallow in vulgarity, but it is my belief that
Sodom and Gomorrah would have escaped their fate, if a Carnegie of that
time had made it possible to keep books like "Penrod" and "Seventeen" in
general circulation!

It was once said of Anthony Trollope that as long as English men and
women of the upper and middle classes continued to exist, he might go on
writing novels with ever-increasing zest. And the same thing might be
said of Booth Tarkington in relation to his unique chronicles of
youth--that is, the youth of the Middle West, with a universal Soul. His
types are American, but there are Americas and Americas. Usage permits
us to use a term for our part of the continent to which our Canadian and
South and Central Americans and Mexicans might reasonably object; but
while the young Americans of Booth Tarkington are typically American,
they personally could belong only to the Middle West. The hero of
"Seventeen" would not be the same boy if he had been born in
Philadelphia or New York or Boston. Circumstances would have made him
different. The consciousness of class distinction would have made him
old before his time; and though he might be just as amusing--he would
not have been amusing quite in the same way.

And this is one of the fine qualities of Mr. Tarkington's imaginative
synthesis. He is individual and of his own soil; he knows very well that
it is unnecessary to exaggerate or even to invent; he has only to
perceive with those rare gifts of perception which he possesses. It all
seems so easy until you try to do it yourself!

The state of mind of Penrod, when he is being prepared for the pageant
of the "Table Round," is inexpressibly amusing to the adult reader; but
no child can look on it as entirely amusing, because every child has
suffered more or less, as Penrod suffered, from the unexplainable
hardness of heart and dullness of mind of older people. Something or
other prevents the most persecuted boy from admitting that his parents
are bad parents because they force impositions which tear all the fibres
of his soul and make him helpless before a jeering world. When Penrod
has gone through horrors, which are nameless because they seem to be