True Misfortune

Everyone talks about misfortune, all have experienced it and believe they know about its multiple character. I have come to tell you that nearly everyone is mistaken and that true misfortune is not everything that people, that is, those who are unfortunate, believe it to be. They see it in poverty, the fireless chimney, the threatening creditor, the cradle empty of that angel who used to smile; they see it in tears, the coffin we walk behind with an uncovered head and broken heart, the anguish of betrayal and the baring of the pride which would like to be dressed in purple and which can barely hide its nakedness beneath the ragged tatters of vanity. All this and much more is called misfortune in human language.  Yes, it is misfortune for those who see nothing but the present; however, true misfortune is found more in the consequences of a thing than in the thing itself. Tell me if an event that is most happy for the moment, but which leads to disastrous consequences, is not really more unfortunate than the one that at first causes a great vexation but ends up resulting in the good. Tell me if the storm that snaps your trees but purifies the air, dissipating unhealthy miasmas that would cause death, is not a blessing rather than a misfortune.

In order for one to judge something, one must look at the consequences. That  is why, in order to determine what is really fortunate or unfortunate, one must be transported beyond this life, because it is there that the consequences will be felt.

Hence, everything that is called unhappiness according to your shortsightedness ends with corporeal life and finds its compensation in the future life.

I will reveal misfortune to you under a new form, under a beautiful and colorful form that you will desire and welcome with all the strength of your deluded souls. Misfortunes are the joy, the pleasure, the turmoil, the empty agitation and the insane satisfaction of vanity that silence the conscience, oppress the action of thought and confuse people about their future. Misfortune is the opium of the forgetfulness that you ardently desire.

Have hope, you who weep! Tremble,  you who laugh because your body is satiated! We do not fool God; we do not dodge our destiny. And the trials, those creditors more pitiless than the wolf pack let loose by misery, are watching your illusory repose to plunge you suddenly into the agony of true misfortune, the kind that surprises the soul indolent through indifference and selfishness.

May Spiritism enlighten you and reestablish truth and error in their true light after having been so strangely deformed by your blindness! Then you will act like brave soldiers who, instead of running away from peril, prefer the battles of brave combat to the peace that will bring them neither glory nor promotion! What does it matter to the soldier to lose his weapons, equipment and uniform in the fray as long as he emerges as the victor and covered with glory! What does it matter to those who have faith in the future to leave their riches and their mantle of flesh upon the battlefield of life, provided their soul enters radiantly into the heavenly kingdom?

Delphine de Girardin (Paris, 1861)