4
" There are even some stars so remote that their light will reach the Earth only when Earth itself is a dead planet, as they themselves are dead, so that the living Earth will never be visited by that forlorn ray of light, without a living source, without a living destination. Often on fine nights when the park of this establishment is vacant, I amuse myself with this marvelous instrument (telescope). I go upstairs, walk across the grass, sit on a bench in the Avenue of Oaks – and there, in my solitude, I enjoy the pleasure of weighing the rays of dead stars. "
― Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam , Tomorrow's Eve
7
" Consider this: when you stand at the entry to a steel factory, you can make out through the smoke some men, some metal, the fires. The furnaces roar, the hammers crash; and the metalworkers who forge ingots, weapons, tools, and so on are completely ignorant of the real uses to which their products will be put. The workers can only refer to their products by conventional names. Well, that's where we all stand, all of us! Nobody can see the real character of what he creates because every knife blade may become a dagger, and the use to which an object is put changes both its name and its nature. Only our ignorance shields us from terrible responsibilities. "
― Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam , Tomorrow's Eve
16
" …on the large white canvas…was refracted the life-size apparition of a very pretty and quite young red-haired woman. The vision, transparent flesh, miraculously photochrome, was dancing.…The movements had the quality of flow of Life itself, thanks to the process of serial photography which, on a six-yard- long ribbon, can capture ten minutes of the motions of a being on microscopic glass-slides, later reflected back through a powerful lamposcope.…Suddenly a flat and heavy voice, silly and harsh resounded.…The gestures, gazes, lip movements…were reproduced. "
― Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam , Tomorrow's Eve
