If we are somewhat more neurotic than the average person, or even abnormal, we go to the writers who are neurotic and abnormal. Why did Baudelaire love Poe so much? Because he saw in him another Baudelaire, a dreamer out of accord with reality, a victim of drink and drugs, a sufferer at the hands of women, an artist loving beauty and refusing to be a reformer. Hence he translated Poe's works, swore to read him daily, and imitated him. Baudelaire's unconscious recognised a brother sufferer in Poe; he wanted to have the same ideal conditions Poe imagined in his dreams; he suffered from the same neuroses that Poe suffered. These two writers became the idols of the French decadent writers, and Huysmans, Mallarmé and others loved them. The French decadents found affinities with ancient authors, especially the Roman poets of the Silver Age, Petronius and Apuleius. Oscar Wilde, Dowson and Arthur Symons in our literature belong to the group who found themselves in harmony with the French decadents. Literary influences are due to definite reasons and follow regular laws. Though sometimes authors appeal to us who are just the opposite of ourselves, we, as a rule, love those writers who write of our own unconscious wishes. What is the secret of the universal appeal of Hamlet? Is it not because many of us, like him, have been in conflict wherein we could not act because there was an external obstacle? Dr. Ernest Jones found a reason for Hamlet's inability to act in an unconscious feeling of guilty love for his mother. He was jealous of his uncle, the murderer of his father, and also the successful rival to Hamlet in his mother's affections. This psychoanalytic interpretation made by Dr. Ernest Jones adds a new element to the old theory of Hamlet's struggle with fate. Hamlet has given rise to a series of characters in literature characterised by inaction, by thinking and not doing. Russian literature, with its Rudins and Oblomovs, has recognised in this portrayal by Shakespeare a common Russian type. Hamlet, nevertheless, had good reason for not being able to act, and finally did act, though he made a bungle of it all.