"A tongue of pale blue flame shivered on the truck of the mast," from Ia by Q. [A. T. Quiller-Couch], 1896.

"He passed whole mornings in his study, immersed in gloomy reverie, stalking about the room in his nightcap."  From Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock, 1818.

"Le genie de l'isle Percé," from Canada From the Lakes to the Gulf by Captain Mac, 1881.

An illustration from Snarleyyow by Frederick Marryat (1897).  The caption reads: "Vanslyperken bent over the cur and kissed it again and again."

From Heroes of the Dawn by Violet Russell, 1914.

Our vintage illustration appears in Funny Books for Boys and Girls, 1856.

Q: "Are all parents incurably mad?" —Rudyard Kipling, Stalky & Co.

The miraculous head, from La Russie et Les Russes by Victor Tissot, 1884.

The Sphinx, drawn from memory (apparently), from Observations in the East, Chiefly in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor by John Price Durbin (1845).

From Voyage aux Pyrénées, Troisième édition by Hippolyte Adolphe Taine and illustrated by Gustave Doré, 1860.

From Festival of Song by Frederick Saunders, 1866.

From The Nightingale by Richard André, 1899.

The sphinx drawn from memory (apparently), from Ziemia Święta i Islam czyli szkice z pielgrzymki do Ziemi Świętej by Józef Sebastian Pelczar, 1875.

Here's a precursor to Annie Dillard's Teaching a Stone to Talk (1982), from St. Nicholas magazine (1915).  The text reads, "Is a stone alive?"

Giving a warning too late to be of any help.  It's the oldest trick in the book.  The caption reads, "Take care, Mr. Malone, the stairs are slippery."  From Shirley by Charlotte Brontë, 1897.

We laud so many discoverers, but the discoverer of grapes surely deserves rhapsodies.  From Our Country by Benson John Lossing, 1875.

"It removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and, flinging both on the floor, trampled on them."  From Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and illustrated by Frederick Henry Townsend, 1897.

From The Tragedy of the Korosko by Arthur Conan Doyle, 1898.

Here's a precursor to invitation-only blogs.  "He called aloud to me not to disturb his webs," from Gulliver's Travels.