Another common case is exemplified by some famous discussions of _Hamlet_. It is curious that people with such different conceptions of the character of Hamlet himself and of the action of the play, have been able to agree none the less as to its value as a whole, apart, of course, from its incidental values. Much has to be discounted in estimating this agreement. On some interpretations praise of the play as a whole is certainly insincere. On the interpretation which makes Claudius the hero, whose tragic frailty lies in the fact that his long-suffering patience with the baseless suspicions of the crazy nuisance Hamlet breaks down in the end and brings the noble monarch to disaster, there would be little beyond the playwright’s subtlety which could honestly be commended. But with all allowances it seems certain that widely different interpretations have seemed to good critics to result in the same peculiar high value of tragedy. The explanation is that tragic value is a general not a specific character of responses. Just as a collision between motorcars and a collision between ships are equally collisions, so the impulses whose equilibrium produces the _catharsis_ of tragedy may be very varied, provided that their relations to one another are correct. Very many of the values of the arts are of this general kind. Besides the experiences which result from the building up of connected attitudes, there are those produced by the breaking down of some attitude which is a clog and a bar to other activities. From Blake’s “Truly, my Satan, thou art but a dunce”,[69] to Voltaire’s “Bon père de famille est capable de tout”, such works can be found in all degrees. It matters little what the detail of the impulses which make up the obstructing attitude for different people in each case may be. This often varies, but when the attitude collapses the effect can be agreed upon. The great masters of irony—Rabelais and the Flaubert of _Bouvard et Pécuchet_—are the chief exponents of this kind of exorcism. [68] For another instance see Browning, _Parting at Morning_. [69] _The Keys of the Gates: To the Accuser who is the God of this World_. CHAPTER XXVII Levels of Response and the Width of Appeal L’art n’est pas chose populaire, encore moins ‘poule de luxe’. . . . L’art est d’essence hautaine.—_Le Corbusier-Saugnier_.