with irritating
dozens in which Mr. Tarkington swallows Indiana whole.

That may have been an easier task than to perform a similar feat with
the state to the east of Indiana, which has always been a sort of
halfway house between East and West; or with that to the north, with its
many alien mixtures; or with that to the south, the picturesque,
diversified colony of Virginia; or with that to the west, which, thanks
in large part to Chicago, is packed with savagery and genius. Indiana,
at any rate till very recently, has had an indigenous population, not
too daring or nomadic; it has been both prosperous and folksy, the apt
home of pastorals, the agreeable habitat of a sentimental folk-poet
like Riley, the natural begetter of a canny fabulist like George Ade. It
has a tradition of realism in fiction, but that tradition descends from
_The Hoosier School-Master_ and it includes a full confidence in the
folk and in the rural virtues--very different from that of E.W. Howe or
Hamlin Garland or Edgar Lee Masters in states a little further outside
the warm, cozy circle of the Hoosiers. Indiana has a tradition of
romance, too. Did not Indianapolis publish _When Knighthood Was in
Flower_ and _Alice of Old Vincennes_? They are of the same vintage as
_Monsieur Beaucaire_. And both romance and realism in Indiana have
traditionally worn the same smooth surfaces, the same simple--not to say
silly--faith in things-at-large: God's in His Indiana; all's right with
the world. George Ade, being a satirist of genius, has stood out of all
this; Theodore Dreiser, Indianian by birth but hopelessly a rebel, has
stood out against it; but Booth Tarkington, trying to be Hoosier of
Hoosiers, has given himself up to the romantic and sentimental elements
of the Indiana literary tradition.

To practise an art which is genuinely characteristic of some section of
the folk anywhere is to do what may be important and is sure to be
interesting. But Mr. Tarkington no more displays the naivete of a true
folk-novelist than he displays the serene vision that can lift a
novelist above the accidents of his particular time and place. This
Indianian constantly appears, by his allusions, to be a citizen of the
world. He knows Europe; he knows New York. Again and again, particularly
in the superb opening chapters of _The Magnificent Ambersons_, he rises
above the local prejudices of his special parish and observes with a
finely critical eye. But whenever he comes to