stands--as good, on the whole, as any possible world. His satire, at
least, is on the side of the established order. A certain soundness and
rightness of feeling, a natural hearty democratic instinct, which
appears in the novels, must not be allowed to mislead the analyst of his
art. More than once, to his credit, he satirically recurs to the
spectacle of those young Indianians who come back from their travels
with a secret condescension, as did George Amberson Minafer: "His
politeness was of a kind which democratic people found hard to bear. In
a word, M. le Duc had returned from the gay life of the capital to show
himself for a week among the loyal peasants belonging to the old
chateau, and their quaint habits and costumes afforded him a mild
amusement." Such passages, however, may be matched 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