"A penny for your thoughts," from 1907.

A page from the Arthur and Fritz Kahn Collection, courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute Archives.

"But beware of the dead," from "The Spectre-Ship" by M. P. Shiel, in Cassell's, 1896.

"Arguefied the queskin with her" [sic; sic].  From Wayside Tales, 1906.

Here's some timebending from Hunter College's Wistarion yearbook, 1958.  See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.

You've heard that we're all made of stardust, but so are bicycles, sewing machines, and typewriters.  Or ... smoke coalesces into the Platonic ideals of bicycles, typewriters, and sewing machines, and the cosmos celebrates.  From Jugend, 1906.

There are those who would have you believe Shakespeare isn't all that puzzling.  No Cipher in Shakespeare by Aldwell Nicholson, 1888.

Here's someone who did not use the Cloud-Busting app we developed.  From Jugend, 1903.  (Yes, our Cloud-Buster truly does dissolve clouds in the sky.  We always caution against using the app in drought-prone areas.)

Here's a well-dressed question mark from Die Bühne, 1925.

"Between the hug of a bear and the tusks of a boar there was not much to choose."  From The New Excitement by Robert Jamieson, 1841.

"Go home!  It's eleven anyway."  From Wayside Tales, 1906.

"A scarlet company—devils, demons, witches."  From Pearson's, 1897.

"Of course you try to carry it off lightly, and bandy merry quips, but your heart isn't in it."  From The Saturday Evening Post, 1920.

INSTRUCTIONS: Click to make a subtle shift.

From Sunday at Home, 1875.

"Ain't this a cruel world?" From 1910.

It's been said that "Fresh language blows a cool breeze through the reader" (Roy Peter Clark, Writing Tools).  And the reader's not the only one.  From Dong Zhi Wu Yan Jiu Fa, c. 1825.

"His hands were raised, as if to motion back some ghostly visitant," from Cassell's, 1896.