“Yes, Monsieur, the Ruling Being of Mars has wings. He flies, passing from one continent to another like a spirit, all around his world, although he is unable to move beyond the vestiges of its atmosphere. I see them flying over the plains and cities, in the gilded air that they have there–for although it was believed in former times that the Martian sky is red while ours is blue, it is actually yellow: a beautiful, golden yellow.

Guy de Maupassant, 1887

“I understand why the cat struck Baudelaire,

Through its magical being in which the Sphinx is incarnate;

Through the caressing charm of the light so clear

That escapes in long jets from its two lynx-like eyes,

I understand why the cat struck Baudelaire.”

Maurice Rollinat, 1883

 

“'Nevertheless,' replied Maurice’s guardian angel, 'man has created science. The important thing is to introduce it into Heaven. When the angels possess some notions of physics, chemistry, astronomy, and physiology; when the study of matter shows them worlds in an atom, and an atom in the myriads of planets; when they see themselves lost between these two infinities; when they weigh and measure the stars, analyse their composition, and calculate their orbits, they will recognise that these monsters work in obedience to forces which no intelligence can define, or that each star has its particular divinity, or indigenous god; and they will realise that the gods of Aldebaran, Betelgeuse, and Sirius are greater than Ialdabaoth.'”

Anatole France, 1914

 

“The child loved Wagner; she sensed something in birth in those monstrous choirs, and, dreamily seeking on her guitar the intervals between the intervals, she found the voice of the wind, and beyond the scales of the wind, yet other scales.”

Louise Michel, 1886

 

“'Father, dear, what will the weather be like in a fortnight’s time—which is to say, on the third day of the second moon?'

“'I’ll tell you, my dear Sinusia. Let me consult the meteorometer.'

“These words, which might seem strange, were exchanged in the workroom—or, rather, the laboratory—of Professor Spherides Altair, in one of the most beautiful dwellings of Jovian Avenue in Kentropol, in the year 9978 of our era.

“'There’ll be a little rain in the morning,' he declared, 'but fine weather in the afternoon and for the next two days.'

“'Ah! So much the better—for I’m planning to take a pleasure trip to the ruins of Paris and London with my friends Aphelia and Parhelia Elliptine, their brother Helikos, and Triagul Parabolis.'”

Henri Allorges, 1922

 

“To be back in Paris I would willingly give the nine symphonies of Beethoven bound in the skin of Richard Strauss.”

Claude Debussy, 1891

 

“The green transparencies

Have drowned into the depths,

Which now roll within their black folds

The sonorous Vertigos.

Conquering Night

Has come,

And one sees the train undulate

Behind her robe fringed with moist stars,

Then disappear.

Behold, far away,

The Lighthouses begin to appear.”

Marie Anastasie Krysinska, 1890

 

“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