"Giving it mouth, and mouth to give it with," from Dicks' English Library of Standard Works, 1884.

"A sketch by our insane artist," from The Man in the Moon, Volume IV.

An illustration from La Vie a Montmartre by Georges Montogueil (1899).

From The Land of the Living Dead by Neal Fyne, 1897.

"We should say either 'complete nonsense' or 'utter nonsense,' since they mean the same thing.  I could also argue we should leave both 'complete' and 'utter' out, since nonsense is nonsense, and there's no such thing as something being half nonsense."

What's in a name?  Here's Samuel Merry from History of Trumbull and Mahoning Co.'s, 1882.

Here's a precursor to our world of misinformation, from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain.

A rose is not just a rose: it is the vibrant depths of the color crimson, the whirl of intricate interlaced patterns, the soft texture of velvet.

Here's a precursor to the Teletubbies, from a camera advertisement in The Pharmaceutical Era, 1887.

From Lavengro; The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest by George Henry Borrow, 1896.  The caption reads, "There is nothing like flinging the bones!"

Here's a precursor to Australian absurdist pantomime performer Grahame Bond (of "Aunty Jack" fame), from A Series of Original Portraits and Caricature Etchings by John Kay, 1877.

Heraldic animals do not have rights, but the inhumane treatment of heraldic animals is inconsistent with armorial morality.  [Or something.]  Our illustration of an apparent heraldic animal farm appears in Berlin Under the New Empire by Henry Vizetelly, 1879.

An illustration from Napoléon et Son Temps by Roger Peyre (1896).

"Why, to shuck peas" ... because the who, what, where, when, and how of shucking peas are self-evident.  From The King's Own by Frederick Marryat and illustrated by Frederick Henry Townsend, 1896.

The "Tomte Gubbe," or old man of the homestead, from Peasant Life in Sweden by Llewellyn Lloyd, 1870.

"'Nuth'n', says Smith."  From Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain, 1883.

The idiom "wearing two [or many] hats" has been traced back to the Civil Service in 1950s England, though we know it actually goes back at least to 1884's A History of the Cries of London, Ancient and Modern by Charles Hindley.

We recall Charles Fort's marvelous theory that we the so-called living are actually ghosts.