"I had no idea what she was talking about. But I was used to that. I love Adrienne madly, and when her eyes glimmer that way she can speak nonsense or Old Norse, and I won’t mind." —Jeremy Edwards, Spark My Moment

This 1884 illustration from Dicks' English Library of Standard Works is a precursor to Freud's 1895 discovery of 'anxiety neurosis' syndrome or 'stage fright.'"  The caption reads: "My performance will be a failure."

An illustration from Illustrated Penny Tales From the Strand Library (1894).  The caption reads: "It was a terrible position."

"[It] doesn't have to be pickles, but pickles are funnier." —J

Sometimes folderol can use a good whack, as we see in this line from 1823.

"The night that changes not," from Songs of Love and Death by Margaret Armour, 1896.

An illustration from Bohemian Paris of To-day by William Chambers Morrow and illustrated by Édouard Cucuel (1899).  The caption reads: "In the passage to the death chamber."

An illustration from The Star of the Sea by N. Gregor (1897).  The caption reads: "Sometimes he was heard returning to this world, shrieking in his passage through the air, and reascending to the skies again."

It's only funny if you knock 'em dead, from Basile the Jester by Joyce Emmerson Muddock, 1896.  The caption reads, "He lay stunned."

The pen is mightier than the [s]word-smith.  From Le Chemin des Écoliers by X. B. Saintine, 1861.

An illustration from Paris Depuis Ses Origines Jusqu'en Ll'an 3000 by Léo Claretie (1886).

An illustration from Home Theatricals made Easy, or, Busy, Happy, and Merry by Frances Elizabeth Callow (1891).  The caption reads: "Have you not a tongue, madam?"

An illustration from A Bid for Fortune by Guy Newell Boothby (1895).  The caption reads: "Tell me what we are to do!"

Here's a precursor to Arrested Development's Lucille and Buster on the cover of the Balboa Bay Window, from St. Nicholas magazine.

"Wrestling in darkness of soul," from Kate Carnegie by Ian Maclaren, 1896.

From The Ingoldsby Legends by Thomas Ingoldsby and illustrated by George Cruikshank, 1866.

An illustration from The Man in the Moon, February (1848).

An illustration from Fair Diana by Wanderer, illustrated by Georgina Bowers (1884).

An illustration from Sing Song by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1893).