Librarians, booksellers, and blatant advertisements assure us that we are a novel-reading public. The number of copies sold of this and that best seller are at first sight staggering, and even more so after having read the book! A certain novel becomes the fashion in the same inconsequential manner as does an especially uncomfortable type of collar—another season both are forgotten and something new is taken up. The writing, publishing and advertising of such books have become a purely commercialized art upon the part of the authors and booksellers. "Where are the snows of yesteryear?" sighed François Villon, "Where are the masterpieces of last summer?" sighs the meditative consumer of fiction. Almost every novel which has those qualities which publishers believe will appeal to an idle, amusement-loving populace is proclaimed in display advertising as "the greatest novel of the decade," "the great American novel," or in some other equally false manner. The author, the publisher, and even the readers know that such statements are utter falsities and yet the sale goes up into the hundreds of thousands. I often wonder what has become of the stupendous number of copies of a certain book the World was reading some ten years ago. It is never mentioned; it is never read; it is seldom seen on anyone’s bookshelves, yet the material volumes must be lying about somewhere. Perhaps such books are indeed as "the snows of yesteryear" and melt away when their day is done. One who wishes seriously to acquire the riches there are in books might well make it a rule never to read a novel until it has stood the test of time. What, bye the bye, is the use of reading, unless you mean to get the best out of it? Walking is better exercise, conversation more sociable, gambling more risky and therefore more full of zest! Any story worth reading this summer must surely be worth reading five years from now. Life is too short, there are too many great books that are eminently worth reading, to spend our time wading through the ruck of tastefully bound, hurriedly illustrated, widely advertised novels that greet us every season. I repeat—Do not read a book that you may be in the swing of up-to-date conversation. If you do, you prove yourselves the gull of everyone concerned. Let time do your winnowing, and if after five years the people of taste are still talking of the book, you may turn to it and probably find something of true merit. You may say that with such a plan you will read but few modern novels. Quite true, there will be but few that stand the test of even five years, but how much better it is to conserve your energies and time for reading the great works of fiction that have stood the test of generations.