all others, and to such a degree as to seem to belong to another
race--namely, Dante, Shakspere, Beethoven, and Michelangelo. No profound
knowledge, no full possession of all the resources of art, no fertility
of imagination, no originality of intellect, sufficed to secure them
this position, for these they all had. These, moreover, are of secondary
importance; that which elevated them to this rank is their soul."

Here we have four great lights for us to steer by when we are
storm-driven on the changing sea of contemporary opinion and
contemporary prejudice; and by their aid we may hope to win safety in a
harbor of refuge.

Perhaps it is a praiseworthy striving for a permanent standard of value
which accounts for the many attempts to draw up lists of the Hundred
Best Books and of the Hundred Best Pictures. It may be admitted at once
that these lists, however inadequate they must be, and however
unsatisfactory in themselves, may have a humble utility of their own as
a first aid to the ignorant. At least, they may serve to remind a man
lost in a maze amid the clatter and the clutter of our own time, that
after all this century of ours is the heir of the ages, and that it is
for us to profit by the best that the past has bequeathed to us. Even
the most expertly selected list could do little more than this.

Nevertheless these attempts, after all, cannot fail to be more or less
misleading, since the best books and the best pictures do not number
exactly a hundred. Nor can there be any assured certainty in the
selection, since no two of those most competent to make the choice would
be likely to agree on more than half of the masterpieces they would
include.