Allan Kardec-THE Spirit's Book_ The Principles of Spiritist Doctrine (1989)

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THE SPIRITS’ BOOK
they will remember it in a future one, and will then feel shame and remorse for their
ingratitude.”
- But this knowledge will not prevent him from being acutely pained by ingratitude in the
present life; might not this pain lead him to think that he would be happier if he possessed
less sensibility ?
"Yes; if he preferred a selfish happiness; but that sort of happiness is a very pitiable one. Let
such a man try to understand that the ungrateful friends who desert him are unworthy of his
friendship, and that he has been mistaken in his estimate of them, and he will no longer regret
their loss. Their place will by and by be filled by others who are better able to understand
him. You should pity those from whom you have received ill-treatment that you have not
deserved, for a heavy retribution will overtake them; but you should not allow yourselves to
be painfully affected by their misconduct. Your indifference to their ill-treatment will place
you above them."
Nature has implanted in man the need of loving of being loved. One of the greatest enjoyments accorded
to him upon the earth is the meeting with hearts that sympathise with his own. This sympathy gives him a
foretaste of the happiness that awaits him in the world of perfected spirits, where all is love and kindness
a happiness that is refused to the selfish.
Antipathetic Unions.
939. Since spirits who are sympathetic to one another are spontaneously attracted' to each
other, how is it that, among incarnated spirits, the love is often only on one side; that the
most sincere affection is met with indifference or even with repulsion; and that, moreover, the
liveliest affection of two persons for one another may be changed into dislike, and even into
hatred?
"Such a contrariety of feeling is a punishment, but only a passing one. Besides, how many are
there who imagine themselves to be desperately in love with each other, because they judge
one another from appearances only, but who, when obliged to live together, soon discover
that their affection was nothing more than a passing caprice ? It is not enough to be taken
with some one who pleases you, and whom you imagine to be gifted with all sorts of good
qualities; it is only by living together that you can ascertain the worth of the appearances that
have captivated you. On the other hand, how many of those unions that seem, at first, as
though they never could become sympathetic, grow, in time, into a tender and lasting
affection, founded upon the esteem that has been