Novels are excluded from "serious reading," so that the man who, bent on self-improvement, has been deciding to devote ninety minutes three times a week to a complete study of the works of Charles Dickens will be well advised to alter his plans. The reason is that bad novels ought not to be read, and that good novels never demand any appreciable mental application on the part of the reader. A good novel rushes you forward like a skiff1 down a stream, and you arrive at the end, perhaps breathless, but unexhausted. A good novel is contrasted with

A.
imaginative poetry
B.
novels written by Charles Dickens
C.
essays written by Hazlitt
D.
a skiff moving down a stream