Genius and misery

There is a very great trial on Earth, upon which the morality of Spiritism should rest: it is the terrible trial of the man of genius, especially of the one endowed with superior faculties, prey to the demands of misery. Ah! yes; this moral trial, this misery of the intelligence, much more than that of the body, will be the greatest merit for the man who has fulfilled his mission. Penetrate yourselves with this incessant struggle of talent against misery, this harpy that throws itself upon you during the banquet of life, similar to the monster of Virgil, and who says to all her victims: You are powerful, but it is I who kill you, I who send to nothingness the gifts of your intelligence, for I am the death of genius. I know that only some are vanquished, but the others, how many are they? There is a painter of the modern school who thus conceived the subject. A being, the genius, whose wings open and whose gaze turns toward the Sun; he almost rises, but falls upon a rock, where iron chains are fixed that will perhaps retain him forever. It is possible that the man who had this dream was himself chained and, perhaps, after his liberation, remembered those whom he had left forever on the rock. Gérard de Nerval. n [1]

[cf.

Gérard de Nerval.]