a crisis in the building
of a plot or in the truthful representation of a character he sags down
to the level of Indiana sentimentality. George Minafer departs from the
Hoosier average by being a snob; time--and Mr. Tarkington's plot--drags
the cub back to normality. Bibbs Sheridan departs from the Hoosier
average by being a poet; time--and Mr. Tarkington's plot--drags the cub
back to normality. Both processes are the same. Perhaps Mr. Tarkington
would not deliberately say that snobbery and poetry are equivalent
offenses, but he does not particularly distinguish. Sympathize as he may
with these two aberrant youths, he knows no other solution than in the
end to reduce them to the ranks. He accepts, that is, the casual Hoosier
valuation, not with pity because so many of the creative hopes of youth
come to naught or with regret that the flock in the end so frequently
prevails over individual talent, but with a sort of exultant hurrah at
seeing all the wandering sheep brought back in the last chapter and
tucked safely away in the good old Hoosier fold.

Viewed critically this attitude of Mr. Tarkington's is of course not
even a compliment to Indiana, any more than it is a compliment to women
to take always the high chivalrous tone toward them, as if they were
flawless creatures; any more than it is a compliment to the poor to
assume that they are all virtuous or to the rich to assume that they are
all malefactors of a tyrannical disposition. If Indiana plays microcosm
to Mr. Tarkington's art, he owes it to his state to find more there than
he has found--or has cared to set down; he owes it to his state now and
then to quarrel with the dominant majority, for majorities occasionally
go wrong, as well as men; he owes it to his state to give up his method
of starting his narrative himself and then calling in popular
sentimentalism to advise him how to bring it to an end.

According to all the codes of the more serious kinds of fiction, the
unwillingness--or the inability--to conduct a plot to its legitimate
ending implies some weakness in the artistic character; and this
weakness has been Mr. Tarkington's principal defect. Nor does it in any
way appear that he excuses himself by citing the immemorial license of
the romancer. Mr. Tarkington apparently believes in his own conclusions.
Now this causes the more regret for the reason that he has what is next
best to character in a novelist--that is, knack. He has the knack of
roma