It is only by comparison with these fixt stars that we can measure the light of any new luminary which aspires to their lofty elevation.  It is only by keeping our gaze full upon them that we may hope to come to an understanding of their immeasurable preeminence.  Taine has told us that “there are four men in the world of art and of literature exalted above 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.

The final and fatal defect in all these lists is that they seek to single out an arbitrary number of works of the highest distinction, instead of trying to find out the few men of supreme genius who were actually the makers of acknowledged masterpieces.  It is of no consequence whether we hold that ‘Hamlet’ or ‘Macbeth’ is the most splendid example of Shakspere’s surpassing endowment, or whether we consider the ‘Fourth Symphony’ or the ‘Seventh’ the completest expression of Beethoven’s mastery of music.  What it is of consequence for us to recognize and to grasp effectually is that Shakspere and Beethoven are two of the indisputable chiefs, each in his own sphere.  What it imports us to realize is that there is in every art a little group of supreme leaders; they may be two or three only; they may be half a dozen, or, at the most, half a score; but they stand in the forefront, and their supremacy is inexpugnable for all time.