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.

Here's a capital T with a nose, from Pearson's, 1897.

"The night watch," from Varney the Vampyre by James Malcom Rymer, 1853.

Here's a character looking through an ornate capital O that begins a chapter in The Man from Manchester by Dick Donovan, 1890.

For what this means, see (or course) our very own One-Letter Words: A Dictionary (and though the hardcover is out of print, the e-version remains "out there").  Our illustration is from The Galaxy magazine, 1866.

From La Normandie Romanesque et Merveilleuse by Amélie Bosquet, 1845.

The caption to this figure identifies the three w's as being written by a monkey.  The other squiggle is unidentified, but we can now reveal it to be a translation of a Sapphic fragment defined by its decline into silence.  From The Evolution of Animal Intelligence by Samuel J. Holmes, 1911.

From Zauberlinda, the Wise Witch by Eva Katherine Clapp, 1901.

From Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, 1900.

Does O envy Q's tail?  Wonder no more.  From Juvenile Instructor, 1917.

"Charlie isn't fooling," and it's only funny if Charlie is fooling.  From Journal of Electricity, 1918.

From La Normandie Romanesque et Merveilleuse by Amélie Bosquet, 1845.

From La Normandie Romanesque et Merveilleuse by Amélie Bosquet, 1845.

From St. Nicholas magazine, 1891.

From La Normandie Romanesque et Merveilleuse by Amélie Bosquet, 1845.