A prerequisite to a physician's bedside manner is a love seat manner.  From Social England Under the Regency by John Ashton (1890).  The caption reads: "A Physician."

An illustration from Past, Present and Future by James E. White (1909).

See Jonathan Allen's A Bad Case of Animal Nonsense.

"Imaginary Companions": an illustration from Echoes from the Rocky Mountains by John Clampitt (1889).

"The Real Music of the Future": an illustration from an 1888 issue of Punch magazine.  The caption reads: "Signor Fohhorni, the Great Hibernian Basso-Tenore Robusto-Profondo, is so disgusted at the frivolity of contemporary musical taste (which is not ripe enough to appreciate him), that he gives up all attempts to please the present generation: he buys a phonograph instead, and devotes his energies to singing for posterity.  By applying his ear to this marvellous instrument immediately after signing into it, he not only hears his song echoed back to him out of the dim future, but he also hears the rapturous applause of Unborn Millions!"

The ghost of the king's daughter, from Comic History of Greece from the Earliest Times to the Death of Alexander the Great by Charles Snyder (1898).

An illustration from an 1867 issue of Punch magazine.

"Nonsense is, technically, done a disservice by its own name.  After all, nonsense is so much more than the absence or even antithesis of sense. It is the presence of superlative silliness!  That said, I love the word 'nonsense' in its own right, and wouldn't want to see it changed." —J

"Watching the skittle players," from In the Ardennes by Katharine Sarah Macquoid, 1881.

"The Reciter's Motto": an illustration from The Aldine Reciter by Alfred Henry Miles (1888).

An illustration from an 1885 issue of Frank Leslie's Pleasant Hours magazine.

This is the best "foodstuffs with humanoid legs" item we've seen all week + n.  The stout and the bread are musicians (why not the rum?  Well, reggae traces back only to the 1960s), while Sir Loin sits out the dance and reads a paper.  We do note one inaccuracy -- the butter in the U.K. is much bigger than that.  Note the one foodstuff that costs 3 d/2 -- is it perchance mutton dressed in lamb prices?  From The Dawn of the XIXth Century in England, 1886.

This puzzle grid contains several big words. Can you find them? The ten-letter word may take some time to unscramble.

• 7-letter words: 15
• 8-letter words: 8
• 10-letter words: 1

All letters in the word must touch (in any direction), and no square may be reused.

Click to display solutions

Do you suppose I’m going on like this because they talk nonsense? Rubbish! I like it when they talk nonsense! Talking nonsense is the sole privilege mankind possesses over the other organisms. It’s by talking nonsense that one gets to the truth! I talk nonsense, therefore I’m human. Not one single truth has ever been arrived at without people first having talked a dozen reams of nonsense, even ten dozen reams of it, and that’s an honourable thing in its own way; well, but we can’t even talk nonsense with our own brains! Talk nonsense to me, by all means, but do it with your own brain, and I shall love you for it. To talk nonsense in one’s own way is almost better than to talk a truth that’s someone else’s; in the first instance you behave like a human being, while in the second you are merely being a parrot! The truth won’t go away, but life can be knocked on the head and done in. I can think of some examples. Well, and what’s our position now? We’re all of us, every one of us without exception, when it comes to the fields of learning, development, thought, invention, ideals, ambition, liberalism, reason, experience, and every, every, every other field you can think of, in the very lowest preparatory form of the gymnasium! We’ve got accustomed to making do with other people’s intelligence — we’re soaked in it! It’s true, isn’t it? Isn’t what I’m saying true?

You've heard of whistling the face of adversity, but here's what to do in an encounter with cannibals, from Among Cannibals: An Account of Four Years' Travels in Australia by Carl Lumholtz (1889).

An illustration from an 1893 issue of The Quiver magazine.  The caption reads: "Out of the darkness behind her was slowly growing a human face."

An illustration from an 1881 issue of Cornhill magazine.  The caption reads: "They always fly at me, and nobody else."