The reason not to cast pearls before swine is that they want cold, hard cash.  From Blasts from The Ram's Horn, 1902.

"Azalia dearest, I'm in such a fright!"  From Home-Theatricals Made Easy, or, Busy, Happy, and Merry by Frances Elizabeth Callow, 1891.

Here's a bird singing a dirge, from Krag and Johnny Bear by Ernest Thompson Seton, 1902.

From The Bashful Earthquake by Oliver Herford (1899).

Here's a guilty-looking Pegasus from Poems by Robert Lloyd, 1762.

From Centi-folium Stultorum in Quarto, 1709.

I, Me, and Him, 3rd edition, 1891.

From the Guidon of the State Female Normal School, Farmville, Virginia, 1909.

From Shipbuilding from Its Beginnings by Emile van Konijnenburg, 1913.

"Mrs. Western spoke, or rather thundered an answer."  From Dicks' English Library of Standard Works, 1884.

Who was it who said that a nation is built one person at a time?  "Mrs. Barnaby commences her work on America," from Dicks' English Library of Standard Works, 1884.

"A visitant from the grave," from The Poor Girl by Pierce Egan the Younger, 1890.  (We like how the first A in the caption resembles a ghostly, upside down V.  There are V's and A's in "visitant" and "grave."  As above, so below.)

"We must give up hope," from Home-Theatricals Made Easy, or, Busy, Happy, and Merry by Frances Elizabeth Callow, 1891.

Here's the only way to fly, from Dicks' English Library of Standard Works, 1884.

She's "at it," from Dicks' English Library of Standard Works, 1884.

Dancing to celebrate the destruction of the world.  From Earthquakes by Arnold Boscoqitz and translated by Coulson Bell Pitman, 1890.

"And the star of peace return," from The Blue Poetry Book by Andrew Lang and illustrated by Lancelot Speed, 1891.

Here's precusor to Lark Rise to Candleford, from St. Nicholas magazine, 1898.

From The Ball of Yarn, 1854.