The provincial American and other papers — Text and Context

The Provincial as a Conscious Identity

Nicholson does not merely describe provincialism; he performs it. In the opening essay, he admits that anywhere east of Buffalo he would be known as a Westerner and that he cannot disguise himself if he would. This awareness of being marked by speech and origin recurs throughout the volume. He writes that he is “most comfortable in a town whose population does not exceed a fif” (the excerpt cuts off), suggesting a deliberate preference for smaller scales. The provincial, for Nicholson, is not a figure of shame but of chosen limitation. He aims to “cheer many who, flung by fate upon the world’s byways, shuffle and shrink under the reproach of their metropolitan brethren.” The tone is both defensive and rallying, a kind of manifesto for those who stay put.

Religion and the Practical Smith

In “Should Smith go to Church?” Nicholson invents a representative figure named Smith, a skeptical everyman uninterested in theological disputes. Smith, Nicholson argues, is not moved by “scholarly discussion of doubtful texts” or the decisions of the Council of Nicæa. What Smith needs is a Christianity stripped to essentials: Christ’s own words in black-face type, a “working platform for the guidance of men.” Nicholson criticizes churches that pursue heretics while ignoring social evils, and praises clergymen who practice “courage” in social service. The essay balances a defense of biblical criticism with a pragmatic call for relevance. The Smiths of the world, Nicholson insists, admire courage in politics and would rally to a religion that practices it undauntedly.

Literary Forebears and Regional Roots

The essay on Edward Eggleston places Nicholson in a lineage of Midwestern writers. Eggleston, known for The Hoosier Schoolmaster, is treated as a pioneer who brought regional material to national attention. Nicholson’s own project echoes this: he writes from Indianapolis, a “provincial capital,” and dedicates the book to George Edward Woodberry, a critic and friend. The dedication, dated September 1912 in Indianapolis, anchors the collection in a specific place and time. Nicholson’s essays are not abstract; they emerge from a particular soil. Even the dialogue “The Spirit of Mischief” and the self-mocking “Confessions of a ‘Best-Seller’” suggest a writer aware of his audience and his own position between the local and the national.

Readers will find that Nicholson’s essays reward attention to his recurring rhetorical moves: the use of a representative figure (Smith), the invocation of personal history as evidence, and the careful negotiation between defense of the provincial and critique of its limitations. The collection is best approached not as a unified argument but as a series of performances of a particular American voice—one that knows itself to be marked by region and uses that marking as a lens for examining broader questions of faith, culture, and belonging.

There’s a moment in Nicholson’s essays where the Midwest feels less like a place and more like a mood—that quiet, wry ache for something half-remembered. It reminds me of another collection I keep nearby, Historical Essays — Story, Setting & Ideas, where the past doesn’t lecture, just lingers. I find myself rereading both on slow evenings, the way one returns to an old photograph.