This is as good an explanation of the weather as we've heard from any meteorologist, from The Gardeners' Chronicle, 1874.

From The Oxford Thackeray.

Here are some ring imps, magnified, from Imprisoned in a Spanish Convent by Eustace Clare Grenville Murray, 1886.

From Fifty Perfect Poems, selected and edited by C. A. Dana and Rossiter Johnson (1882).

   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(   ,(
`-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `-'  `

You've heard of carrying "coals to Newcastle," but here is revealed how they get there: via cherubs.  From Church Review, 1901.  We recall Jonathan Caws-Elwitt's sitcom treatment: "Coles to Newcastle: Posh Londoner Dagobert Coles has hilarious misadventures adjusting to life in the North."

"Come, Heavenly Powers! primeval peace restore!  Love!—Mercy!—Wisdom!—rule for evermore!"  From The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell, 1843.

From Goddelycke Wenschen, 1629.

"Are you magnetic north, geodetic north, grid north, or astronomical true north?" [we imagine her asking], from Goddelycke Wenschen, 1629.

From Goddelycke Wenschen, 1629.

Here's the patron saint of slippery slopes, from Lead, Kindly Light by John Henry Newman and illustrated by Frank Dadd, 1887.

From Stories for the Household by Hans Christian Andersen, 1889

From Les Merveilles du Mont. St. Michel by Paul Henri Coretin Féval, 1880.

From Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson, 1898.  A larger version of the image is here or here.

An illustration from Across the Border by Edward Emmerson Oliver (1890).  The caption reads: "The Flying Throne of Star-taught Sulaimân."

"The Sisters": an illustration from Arthur's Home Magazine (1865).

An illustration from Our Young Folks (1873).  The caption reads: "Jacky and the Sleep Angel."

"Behind the chair of the sleeping man I saw a child."  From In a Sea Bird's Nest by Frances Clare, 1896.

Does the spirit of Vaudeville wear a novelty hat?  From Bachelor Ballads by Harry A. Spurr, 1899.  [For Jonathan Caws-Elwitt.]