“Yes, Monsieur, science will procure the definitive triumph of suffering humankind. It has already done a great deal; it has tamed time and space. Our railways, our telegraphs and our telephones have suppressed distance. If we succeed, as Dr. Pastoureaux seems to anticipate, in demonstrating that we can put intelligence into our machines, humans will be liberated forever from servile labor. No more serfs, no more proletariat! Everyone will become bourgeois! The slave machine will liberate from slavery our humbler brethren and give them the right of citizenship among us. 

“A day will come when machines, always running hither and yon, will operate themselves, like the carrier pigeons of Progress; one day, perhaps, having received their complementary education, they will learn to obey a simple signal in such a way that a man, sitting peacefully and comfortably in the bosom of his family, will only have to press an electro-vitalic switch in order for machines to sow the wheat, harvest it, store it and bake the bread that it will bring to the tables of humankind, and thus finally become the King of Nature.”

Emile Gondeau, 1891

“Evening fell. At sunset the mountains were opalescent. New ones appeared; they trailed laminated algae, which, long and fine as hair, appeared first as captive sirens, then as a vast reticulation; the moon shone through as a jellyfish in a net, as nacreous holothurian; then moving freely through the open sky, the moon turned azure-colored. Pensive stars went astray, whirled, plunged into the sea. Toward midnight appeared a gigantic vessel; the moon illuminated it mysteriously; its rigging stood motionless; the bridge was dark. It passed close beside us; there was no sound of oars, no noise from the crew. We finally realized that it was caught in the ice, between two icebergs that had closed in on it. It passed on by, silently, and disappeared.”

André Gide, 1893

“They are creatures perfect enough to disquiet their creators with the possibility that these strange beings should one day cross, by means of their acquired speed, the narrow frontier within which intelligence confines instinct, trying in their turn to scale the heavens, to stifle their bewildered masters against breasts of bronze, and to render into their native dust the human clay that they once took for gods!”

Alfred Didier Marie Mesnard, comte de Chousy, 1884

“The Eye, Like A Strange Balloon, Mounts Toward Infinity.” 

Odilon Redon, 1882

 

“Harmony is nothing but a garment, more or less diaphanous, more or less suitable, which one throws over a beautiful body like gauze, silk, linen or wool, allowing one to discern its forms and outlines, disguising them, or altogether suppressing them. Melody without harmony is always something; harmony without melody is nothing.”

Fabre d'Olivet, 1810

“Already the Master’s soul has departed, at the mere word The Bells, toward dazzling rhapsodies.

“Here ring out upon the piano: bells of spring mornings, bells across the countryside, bells of village baptisms.

“And the harmonies are as limpid as the sky where the last rose-colored traces of dawn have just faded.

“Then comes the Angelus bell, hovering like a sacred dove above fields where sheaves lie flattened, cut by the sickle, now idle in the brown hands of praying peasant women.

“The keyboard murmurs like distant organs in Gregorian plainsong.

“But here is the tocsin—the bell of disaster, of insurrection, of massacre.

“And the chords, under the magician’s fingers, become dissonant, torn by cries, heated with cascading blood, darkly blazing with fire.

“One can discern the clash of arms; the chromatic scale of turmoil rides the sound waves; the minor lament of the sacrificed breathes out.

“Bah! Since men kill one another, they must be remade.”

Maria Anastasia Krysińska, 1905

“That garden is singular too; you shall see it shortly, very nearly as it has always been. High walls surround it on three sides and weld it to the house. It is not vast; it is square; arcades of old box-trees line the wall and form two niches at the far corners in which there are two figures, one of a Faun crushing a bunch of grapes under his hoof, the other of a Centaur rolling a waterskin with his. In the center there is a pond, also square, with raised edges of green-tinted stone, in the middle of which, on a pedestal set in the water, stands a green bronze statue of a naked man who seems to be listening attentively to the surroundings. As there are neither trees nor flowers in the garden, dead leaves and petals do not fall into the water; it shines, bright, profound and black; when one walks around it one can see therein the mirage of the statue, which follows you, and always seems to be looking at you, for it has four identical faces on four bodies, which, by an artifice of optics, are the same one, taking turns.”

Henri de Regnier, 1897

“And Monelle handed me a hollow stalk of fennel, inside of which burned a pink filament. 

“'Take this torch,' she said, 'and burn. Burn everything on the earth and in the sky. And break the fennel and put out its flame when you have finished burning, for nothing should be passed on; 

“'So that you be the second Narthekophoros, and that you destroy with fire, and that the fire fallen from the sky rise again to its heights.'”

Marcel Schwob, 1894

 

“'What! You are singing in a theatre!' exclaimed my aunt, when I told her of my engagement at Brussels. 'My poor child! You will be everlastingly damned! Who would ever have thought such a thing possible? A little girl of our family going to be an actress—one of those women who could not be buried in consecrated ground in the old days! The curé himself has told me all about it. It's terrible, terrible!' she cried, rocking herself back and forth in her chair and bursting into tears. 'I will pray for you!'”

Emma Calve, 1922

“We read also, that they in Apulia that were touched with a kinde of dangerous Spider, were astonished untill they heard a certain sound, at the hearing of which every one riseth up and danceth.”

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, 1533

“Have the beautiful magic lantern set up in your home. It won't cost you more than fifty-five sous. Until now it has only been the pleasure of children, but I have invented a magic lantern for the usage of adults, which will show you a thousand ingenious and various tableaux for the amusement of parents and the tranquility of children.

“Attach a white sheet to your wall, while calling to me through the window, and arrange yourselves very sagely, like the Tuesday spectators at the Comédie Française. I shall come with my apparatus, and then you will have pleasure for your money. You will see the Good God, and Monsieur le Soleil, Madame la Lune, Mesdemoiselles les Étoiles, the King, the Queen, the Gendarme, the Executioner, Morning, Midday, Evening, the Seven Deadly Sins, the Elements and many figures of an enticing modernity.”

Théodore de Banville, 1883

 

“After a comfortable dinner, as we were lighting cigars, plunged in profound armchairs, someone pronounced the word occultism, and our conversation turned toward strange things.”

Gabriel de Lautrec, 1922

“I don’t imagine I shall ever be 'influential.' I've been too thorough in cultivating my indifference to my fellow human beings, which is probably the only way one can choose between them.”

Claude Debussy, 1901

“My first sensations under the new drug were similar to those induced by a strong dose of Cannabis indica. There was the same protraction of the time-sense, by which mere minutes were stretched out into ages; and the same spatial expansion, by which my laboratory walls appeared to recede to an immense distance, and my own body, as well as the familiar objects about me, extended themselves to prodigious height and length. The legs of my chair were tall as the famed sequoias. My hand and arm, reaching up to make sure that the graph was correctly adjusted on my forehead over the pineal gland, seemed to scale a gulf like that of some profound canyon. A carboy loomed like a giant monument.

“I gazed on a medley of strange-angled forms that might have materialized from a geometrician's nightmare.”

Clark Ashton Smith, 1933

 

“Hashish is composed of a extraction of Indian hemp, butter, and a small quantity of opium. Take a clump the size of a nut, fill a small spoon, and happiness will be yours: absolute happiness with all its intoxication, its youthful folly, and its infinite blessedness. 

“As far as possible, you need a fine apartment or a beautiful scene, a free and unconcerned mind, and a few accomplices whose intellectual talents are similar to your own; and a little music if you can get it.

“Then the hallucinations begin. External objects take on a monstrous appearance. They show your senses forms heretofore unknown. Then they are deformed and finally enter into your being, or rather you enter into theirs. Sounds have colors, and colors have a music. Musical notes are numbers, and you perform mathematical calculations with terrifying speed as the music flows into your ears. You are seated and you have a smoke; you start to think that now you're inside the pipe, and it's you whom your pipe is smoking; you yourself are being exhaled in the form of bluish clouds.”

Charles Baudelaire, 1860

“For today, be content to know that this crocodile is a cruel being, but cunning, as the wicked are, and timid, like them.

“In fact, by dint of agitating, the crocodile is oozing a thick foam from all its pores, which emits a noxious odor. In addition, torrents of fire emerge from its mouth, which would have intimidated the most intrepid of men. That foam and that fire amalgamate together and are transformed into an innumerable multitude of maleficent animals of every species, which circulate en masse in the atmosphere, obscuring it to such an extent that nothing at all can any longer be discerned, and not the slightest particle remains that is breathable.”

Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, 1798

 

“I had taken hashish three times with little result, beyond a slight disturbance of the optical perceptions. The fourth time, I increased the dose by a fourth of the usual amount, and waited patiently among my books.

“I gazed upon them with the dreamy languor of a god.”

Clark Ashton Smith, 1920

“Thanks to the labors of a science which is comparatively recent, and more especially to the researches of the students of Hindu and Egyptian antiquities, it is very much easier today than it was not so long ago to discover the source, to unravel the underground network of that great mysterious river which since the beginning of history has been flowing beneath all religions, all faiths, and all philosophies: in a word, beneath all the visible and every-day manifestations of human thought.”

Maurice Maeterlinck, 1922

 

“On the eleventh day, in the morning, Ab-Hakek was not yet dead. A noise of heavy footsteps was heard in the stairwell of the turret. The door opened: a phantasmagoric and portentous being entered. It was Agraman. 

“At the sight of him, the magician, burdened and statue-like as he was, stood up. ‘I am hungry!’ he murmured, ‘I am going to die: it is time to tell me the last word of science.’

“Agraman took him by the wrist and shouted in his ear, with a violent and metallic burst of laughter: ‘Master! Science is the shadow of a shadow: umbra umbræ!’”

Alphonse Esquiros, 1838

 

“This opera by Zola and Bruneau is full of symbols. I must say I don’t understand this excessive need for symbols. They seem to have forgotten that it is still music that is supreme in its beauty. As you would expect, each symbol takes the form of a leitmotiv; once again music is weighed down by these obstinate little phrases, which insist on having their say no matter what else is going on. Really, to pretend that such-and-such a succession of chords represents this or that sentiment, and that so-and-so phrase is one or another character—it is nothing but an anthropometrical game.”

Claude Debussy, 1901

“Baudelaire really gets on my nerves.”

Eugène Delacroix, 1857

“Certain omens of battle were beginning to appear in the heavens and in the speeches of diplomats. The first days of spring had arrived, and spring seemed, in the opinion of all men of war, to be the best time to undertake the mutual massacre of nations.”

Paul Adam, 1893

“Claude Debussy is little known by the crowd, goes nowhere, composes, I fancy, only when he feels inclined, and lives like a recluse, scorning all noisy advertisement. What an admirable and rare example! And what a lot of valuable time some men waste nowadays in preparing their publicity, in writing and distributing notices that proclaim their own glory. Having shut himself up in this haughty seclusion, M. Debussy seems intent on expressing the transient impressions of the dream he is in quest of, rather than the eternal passions of the world which he shuns. There is a certain amount of danger in this tendency for, sooner or later, truth and reality must triumph over illusion, be it ever so seductive.”

Alfred Bruneau, 1900

 

To the Illustrious Cabaner

“May he be cursed, this Wagner

Who stole your glory from you!

Glory to your name, Cabaner!

Nerve—

Where all harmony vibrates!”

Anonymous, 1881

 

“Symbolism dead! But it is, precisely, that which does not die, for it’s the quivering idea, living in all forms. In art as in nature, everything can be a symbol, since everything has a hidden meaning.”

Willy, 1901

 

“‘Everything is possible to science,’ said Archibold, authoritatively. 

“‘Easy, even,’  Hatchitt approved. “‘The world will be ended by science, as Edenic humankind perished. All religions have predicted it.’ 

“‘Science must have limits?’  I objected, in order to reassure myself. 

“‘Science has no limits,’  Archibold replied. “‘Science is progress—a forward march, with no pause, and no terminus. Its law, the law of mind, is to accelerate, just as the law of bodies is to accelerate as they fall, increasing their speed in proportion to the square of the distance. It’s only two hundred years since man began the conquest of science; he’s still stammering its elements, trying his first steps—but he will take his course, and his speed will be multiplied by the square of centuries. We would go mad if it were given to us to see where man has arrived a thousand years hence, progressing at such a pace, and yet it is we ourselves who will have made that road. For humankind, Pascal says, is but one man ‘who always subsists and who learns incessantly;’ one man who will know, one day, the ultimate limits of things; for whom his world will have no more secrets, and who, disdaining even the puerile work of destroying it, will kick it away like a cadaver worn out by the scalpel, and will pursue his studies on a better planet, on golden Vulcan, or even in a sun.’”

Comte Didier de Chousy, 1884

 

“The unaccustomed flamboyance of Mars—uniquely due, perhaps, to the general adoption of the Auer mantle by the inhabitants of that planet—has brought the ever-interesting topic of interastral communication back to the table of discussion. 

“How can we signal to them, and inform them that the Earth, our beloved little Earth, is populated by intelligent beings (I mean my readers) perfectly capable of entering into communication with them? 

“Charles Cros was very interested in this question and published a curious little essay in which he proposed a system of luminous signals, beginning with a very simple rhythm and progressing to more complicated rhythms, susceptible to being perceived and understood by individuals of a cerebral organization analogous to ours.

“If the Martians have their backs turned to us at present, it’s necessary to shout very loudly to make them turn round. You’re beginning see the plan: to mobilize, for an hour, the entire human species, all the animals, all the bells, all the pistols, rifles, cannon, all the parliamentary assemblies, all the orchestras, from Lamoureux’s to the municipal band of Honfleur and the Queen of Madagascar’s fanfare, etc., etc., pianos, mothers-in-law—in brief, all creatures or objects capable of making a noise.

“Mars being separated from the Earth by so many leagues, and sound travelling at so many leagues per second, the Martian will hear our concert after so many hours, minutes and seconds. After a lapse of twice that time, plus the time needed to organize a response, if we don’t hear any astral clamor, it’s either because the Martians are as deaf as posts or that they’re giving us the cold shoulder, like their premier lager, Mars beer.”

Alphonse Allais, 1902

“[At New Caledonia,] I had my own ideas for an orchestra: I wanted to shake palm branches, strike bamboo, create a horn from shells, and use the tones produced by a leaf pressed against the lips. In short, I wanted a Kanaka orchestra, complete with quarter tones. Thanks to knowledge I had gotten from Daoumi and the Kanakas who brought supplies, I believed I knew enough to try. But my plan was blocked by the Committee for Light Classical Theater. Indeed, they accused me of being a savage.”

Louise Michel, 1888

ABOUT THE LOWER RESONANCE 

Of the sympathetic vibration of a low string to the call of a high string, and of the possible consequences deriving therefrom. 

“Until now, scholars have not admitted that any sound was capable of sympathetically causing another sound, lower than itself, to vibrate sympathetically, whatever their concomitance (see d'Alembert, Helmholtz, Tyndall, Koenig, etc.). Now, it is the practical realization of such an experience that I come to discuss.

“The wise reservations of Helmholtz having made me skeptical with regard to the scientific value of the results obtained on the harmonium, I preferred the piano, which eliminates, as much as possible, harmonics, hums, etc. 

“Having practiced first octave, quintoyer in the treble, Yut z of the piano, then the neighboring notes, I soon became quite skilful in this preparatory exercise, so much so that I no longer needed to release from its damper the high string which was to vibrate sympathetically at the call of the fundamental sound of the series to which it belonged. 

“With this result acquired, I tried to obtain, from a sound lower than the note emitted, what the higher sounds had given me, fairly quickly. I had to achieve a hammering whose rhythm matched synchronically with the number of vibrations of the target string in order to succeed. 

“Finally, I had the satisfaction of hearing, very faintly, the low sound. 

“To be certain I wasn't objectifying a chimerical sound, I had competent witnesses--one of them a sensitive composer, the others poets--pass in front of my piano, in such numbers that it was no longer possible for me to doubt.”

Edmond Bailly, 1893

 

“I have undertaken a task that is beyond me; there being no precedent to go on, I find myself obliged to invent new forms.” 

Claude Debussy, 1885

“At this distance, there’s joy in hearing the silence of the heavenly bodies. At closer range, the harmony of the spheres gets on my nerves. It’s more pleasing to listen to the lyre of infinity when its three strings are broken. Thought rises to the secret of the skies. Everything is counted by weight and measure. Everywhere, however, emptiness is superabundant. Zero is the sacred number. Everything rests on that. Its form is mysterious. It has neither beginning nor end. It grips without grasping. Without being, it appears; and the sphere of the worlds is a great zero that traces its emptiness in empty space.”

Edgar Quinet, 1834

 

“Be patient, Brahymus, proud foster-brother of the divine Brahyma; the cataclysm that ought to deliver you and put an end to the punishment that you are suffering is nigh. The Earth is stirring, its cocoon is growing, without humans perceiving it, for the continent of tomorrow has risen by several kilometers without the equilibrium of the tides being troubled thereby. Soon, it will be possible to calculate the enormous quantity of plasma absorbed by the Saturnian larva. Without that absorption of millions and millions of tons of liquid, America and Europe would already be submerged. Patience! Only two and a half centuries separate you from your liberation. Do not harbor any more hatred for me, whose carnal envelope the snows will preserve intact, when my spirit will be far away in the astral. I salute you, O imprisoned force; be kind to those I love and those who demand of your gaze the mystery of your torment. Adieu!”

Odette Dulac, 1926

Memories Without Regrets

Regarding Ernest Cabaner

“Whenever his fortune allowed him to cook for himself and eat at home, here was the recipe for his "frichti" (stew). Actually, it was quite good, and thrifty housewives could make an excellent sweet dessert out of it:

“On a bed of well-cooked rice, in a large earthenware dish, a few oranges—which his sense of aesthetics arranged harmoniously—some figs, and raisins; a few prunes, some water: that’s all. He would place this strange food over a low flame and let it simmer for long hours.

“So much for food.

“As for love, Cabaner held the most curious ideas about women. In his mind, they were inferior and demonic beings, with rare exceptions he would cite without blinking: 'Superior women, like Nini-Voyou, Madame de Staël, and Thérésa...'

“This state of mind led him to conceive of a paradise reserved specifically for intellectuals. The planet of his dreams was a planet made of flesh, inhabited solely by men—superior men, of course. It was at once the mother, the nurse, the communal wife, and the sanctuary of its inhabitants.

“Perhaps I should explain my friend’s fantastical vision a little. As a sanctuary, the planet offered the folds of its skin, and in winter, its forests of hair. As a nurse: rivers, lakes, and seas of milk escaped from its specialized glands. As for wife and mother, I believe I need not elaborate... let us move on.

“Cabaner, hating official music, had imagined a secondary system of his own. Everything: music theory, harmony, melodic construction, counterpoint, etc. In truth, when heard, it was actually quite good.”

Charles de Sivry, 1898

“In France, I found some friends on arriving in Paris who took an interest in Indian music, among them the venerable Monsieur Edmond Bailly, who was a lover of India and its music.  With the kind help and co-operation of Lady Churchill, he arranged our first concert in Paris. I gave a few lectures on music, with demonstrations.  I met many musicians, among them Monsieur Debussy, the great composer of France, who became very much interested in our rāgas. The evening when the rāgas were played to him, he always remembered and called it 'the evening of emotions.'”

Inayat Khan, 1924

“Near the confines of the polar circle, in Canada, in Labrador, in Greenland, there exists a species of remarkable animals whose paws are made of crystal, in the form of Champagne flutes, ornamented by a round foot, similar almost to the rackets that indigenous hunters used to walk on fresh snow. Those animals are made of snow doubtless, and ice; their eyes resemble multicolor pearls. Moreover, as they dance in the moonlight, their crystal paws, striking each other, give to the rare voyageurs there the sensation of a concert where one might hear harmonicas only.”

Émile Goudeau, 1888

“Books dealing with the music of ancient Greece usually state, without comment, that the tetrachords apparently constituting the original organization of Greek music had a descending slope; their tones were listed from higher to lower pitch. In several histories of music I read in the summer of 1917, I found brief statements, at times merely footnotes, that the standard musical progressions (or scales) of all ancient cultures descended from high to low notes. The implications of this are vast and profound, indicating that a total reversal of human consciousness of sound has occurred since ancient Greece. 

“Would anyone singing or playing scales today start with high-pitched sounds and gradually descend to lower pitches? Is not the feeling and thought of rising scales absolutely ingrained in present-day musical consciousness? 

“What could have occurred to produce such a reversal in musical consciousness?”

Dane Rudhyar, 1919

 

“'The Great Leader has given his approval to the clearance of America!' trumpeted the loudspeakers from the heights and base of the Monument. 'Go and see the flying machines that will hunt the Terrans—the prodigious volvites! Seven hundred kilometers per hour…departure of the first official squadron in five minutes!'

“'Hurrah for the Great Leader! Hurrah for the Boss!' howled the raucous throats of the Terromartians.”

Theo Varlet 1921

 

The Pebble Dead of Love
A story fallen from the Moon

On the 24th tchoum-tchoum (Wéga reckoning, 7th series), a frightful moonquake devastated the Sea of Tranquillity. Horrible—or charming—fissures appeared in this virgin yet fertile soil. A flint (nothing yet of the age of split stone, and all the more so of polished stone) ventured to roll down from a lost peak and, proud of its roundness, went to lodge itself a few phthwfg from fissure A.B.33, vulgarly called Monkey-Mold. The rosy aspect of this landscape, quite new to it, a flint barely disembarked from its peak, the black manganese moss that overhung the fresh abyss, drove the rash pebble wild; it stopped hard, upright, stupid.

The fissure burst into the delicious but silent laughter peculiar to the Beings of the Atmosphere-less Planet. Its physiognomy, in this laughter, far from losing any of its grace, gained a je-ne-sais-quoi of exquisite modernity. Enlarged, yet more coquettish, it seemed to say to the pebble: “Come on in, then, if you dare!”

The latter (whose true name was SKKJRO) judged it wise to precede his amorous assault with a serenade sung in the perfumed void of magnetic oxide. He employed the imaginary coefficients of an equitation of the fourth degree. It is known that in ethereal space one obtains, by this method, fugues without equal. (Plato, bk. XV, §13.)

The fissure (its selenian name means “Augustine”) at first appeared sensitive to this homage. It was even weakening, welcoming. The pebble, emboldened, was about to abuse the situation, to roll further, to penetrate perhaps…

Here the drama begins—brief, brutal, true. A second moonquake, jealous of this idyll, shook the dry ground. The fissure (Augustine), terrified, closed forever, and the pebble (Alfred) burst with rage. From that moment dates the Age of Split Stone.

Charles Cros, 1886

“At the head of a mauve bed on which the king is sleeping, a colossal serancolin Cherub spreads his hieratic wings. The sibylline monster, whose human head, taurean wings, leonine feet and aquiline wings allegorize the quaternary of eternal knowledge, must be the tutelary guardian of Assur.”

Victor-Émile Michelet, 1900

“Put your eye to this powerful telescope, and follow my explanations. The island, as you doubtless know, has the form of a human body. Direct the telescope toward its contours and you’ll be able, in places, to convince yourself of it. The Superman resolved to distribute his palaces in accordance with that disposition of nature. He occupies the location of the Brain. It’s from there that he directs the thought and action of his realm. Turn the visual axis of the instrument toward that region, and you’ll perceive, confusedly, the mass of brilliant domes beneath which he presides over our destiny. It’s fantastic! You’ll see that in due course. Come and look backwards now. 

“The Heart is that immense red dome, the swelling of which you can perceive. It is, along with the Brain, the most important system in the realm. Immense factories manufacture omnial, sympathetic, telepathic and other fluids there, the services of which we appreciate every day. Telephony, lighting and the various physical energies have their origin there. Also accumulated there is atmospheric electricity, heat from the central fire, the cold of glaciers and the tidal force of the sea, previously unutilized, which our engineers have been able to store.

“To conclude, separating in the sea, there are the inferior Limbs, populated like the Arms, and the region of the Ankles, where the slaves live.”

André Couvreur, 1904

 

Across the foliated space of the twenty-seven equivalents, Faustroll conjured up into the third dimension:

From Baudelaire, E. A. Poe's Silence, taking care to retranslate Baudelaire's translation into Greek.

From Bergerac, the precious tree into which the nightingale-king and his subjects were metamorphosed, in the land of the sun.

From Bloy, the black pigs of Death, retinue of the Betrothed.

From Coleridge, the ancient mariner's crossbow and the ship's floating skeleton, which, when placed in the skiff, was sieve upon sieve.

From Kahn, one of the golden peals from the celestial goldsmiths' shops.

From Lautréamont, the scarab, beautiful as the trembling of hands in alcoholism, which vanished over the horizon.

From Maeterlinck, the lights heard by the first blind sister.

From Mallarmé, the virgin, the bright, and the beautiful today.

From Mendes, the north wind which blew upon the green sea and blended with its salt the sweat of the galley slave who rowed until he was a hundred and twenty years old.

From Péladan, the reflection, in the mirror of the shield silvered with ancestral ashes, of the sacrilegious massacre of the seven planets.

From Régnier, the sorrel plain where the modern centaur snorted.

From Rimbaud, the icicles hurled by the wind of God into the waters.

From Schwob, the scaly animals imitated by the whiteness of the leper's hands.

From Ubu Roi, the fifth letter of the first word of the first act. 

From Verlaine, voices asymptotic toward death.

From Verne, the two and a half leagues of the earth's crust.

Alfred Jarry, 1911

“I thought: Before I write about my favorite artist, what have others written before me? I thought: Perhaps—Many have written about Edgar Poe. Only I’ve been disappointed, so very disappointed. There was just one able to grasp the spirit of him. There was only Baudelaire. Baudelaire whose art came from hashish. How could he not grasp him, he who formed valuable art out of alcohol and laudanum?”

Hanns Heinz Ewers, 1905

 

“Whereas natural or temporal music will all cease in the course of time, the principal music, whose unity can only be depicted by temporal music in successive form, and which is, in fine, the natural and divine music, will never cease.”

Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, 1790

 

“I remember that, from the first measures [of Wagner's Lohengrin] I experienced one of those happy impressions that almost all imaginative men have known in dreams. I felt myself freed from the bonds of gravity. . . . Next, involuntarily, I imagined to myself the delightful state of a man gripped by a great dream in an absolute solitude, but a solitude with an immense horizon and filled with a vast diffused light; an immensity with no décor except itself. Soon I experienced the sensation of a brighter light, of an intensity of light increasing so quickly that none of the nuances furnished by the dictionary would suffice to express this always renascent increase of brilliance and whiteness. Then I had the full realization of a soul moving in a luminous milieu, of an ecstasy composed of pleasure and knowledge, and soaring above and far away from the natural world.”

Charles Baudelaire, 1861

“The former editor of the Theosophical Society, Henri-Edmond Limet, known as Bailly, died on September 8th last. He was born in Lille on 19th June, 1850, at two o'clock in the afternoon.

“Like Pythagoras, Bailly believed that everything in the world, including planetary movements,‘was created and organized according to the laws governing music,’ music here defined as ‘a harmony formed of several dissonant sounds.’ Through music, he seems to suggest, one could enter into a relation with nature, the cosmos, and all else. All this builds on the theosophical idea that ‘vibrations give form and structure on both the higher and lower planes,’ and that acoustics remake the relations between the visible and the invisible."

Mercure de France, 1917

“In our age of all curiosities is it not astonishing that, apart from two or three hermits whose names each one takes care not to remember, the study of the origin of symbols is nil or almost nil? How is it that such a study, conducted with materials and documents in hand, has not tempted the young phalanx which marches, few in number but ardent, to the conquest of this other golden fleece, the Ideal? 

“Today I experienced the joy of reading a book, the work of an artist who was also a scholar and a philosopher, in which it is established that certain decorative motifs reproduced among all peoples and in all times, on monuments as well as on simple everyday objects, are not due to the simple fantasy of art workers, but constitute a family of hierograms formerly commonly read by the wise men of the whole earth, and since lost due to the eternal inconstancy of human destinies. These signs revealing the most subtle laws of creation, these keys to the mysteries, the writer of the book I am talking about, Mr. Emile-Soldi, rightly considers, as symbols of a primitive language that he calls the Sacred Language.”

Edmond Bailly, 1897

“The value of the word is purely that of a symbol. A sign of the identical unknown that we perceive in everything, it marks the front with a emblem that reminds us of that identity. All things are signs and signs of other signs. Those thoughts were engendered, confusedly, in the minds of the visitors. They had the impression of living, momentarily, in a milieu haunted by symbols.”

Gabriel de Lautrec, 1904

“One must never explain symbols. One must never penetrate them. He who has drawn the symbol has hidden a truth inside it, but he must not reveal it, or else why symbolize it in the first place?”

Pierre Louÿs, 1895

“Louder than a normal voice, a voice announces accidents, the temperature and declaims a chronicle or a story. Nothing is more bizarre than hearing the thousand phonographs under the arcades. Each of the “stations” carries a sign indicating the nature of the recitations. The lovers of news stop under the Voice of Events; people fond of literature sup tea under the Voice of the Poets. Those who like to relive ancient times drink within range of the Voice of India, the Voice of Rome or the Voice of Greece. The marine murmur of those confused voices causes a kind of anguish.”

Paul Adam, 1897

“I was about to finish—or near enough—The Fall of the House of Usher, but the illness has blown out my hopes. It’s obviously of little importance on Aldebaran or Sirius whether I write music or not, but I don’t like being contradicted and I take this twist of destiny very hard.”

Claude Debussy, 1916