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 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.