There is a very important trial on Earth that must support the morality of Spiritism: it is the terrible trial of the genius, especially the one endowed with superior skills, but subjected to the demands of misery. Ah! Yes. That moral trial, more trying to the mind than to the body, will be of great merit to the person that has accomplished his mission. Be aware of that unstoppable struggle between talent and misery, that unpleasant monster cast upon you during the celebrations of life, like the monster of Virgil telling his victims: You are powerful but I am the one that kills you; it is me who will turn your intelligence into dust because I am the death of genius.
I know that it is only a few that are defeated but how many others are there? There is a painter of the modern school who has conceived a very good image on the subject: ‘There is man, a genius, whose wings are spread and whose eyes are affixed to the side of the Sun; he is almost standing but he falls back onto the rock which he is shackled, perhaps forever.’
The man who had this dream might have been chained as well and perhaps after his liberation he remembered those left behind on the rock.
Gérard de Nerval
