Columns of asterisks, as if depicting the mention of blood pouring freely as water.  From Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland by Thomas Crofton Croker, 1828.  By the way, we translate typography like this in our highly unusual book Annotated Ellipses.

"The author was suffering from a combination of evils, want of rest and want of money being predominant."  From English Illustrated, 1907.

Is the cure a dose of ink?  (English Illustrated, 1890).

Here's a precursor to the Seinfeld episode "The Contest," which features the euphemism "master of my domain."  The text reads, "As he lay down in his bed he exclaimed, under his breath, 'Master of the Situation!'"  From Once a Week, 1870.

Our Favorite Asterisk of All Time?

Check out the very special asterisk in this little verse from The Wonder Clock by Howard Pyle, 1887.  It stands for the word gloom (in all fairness, how much clarity can we expect of gloominess?) even as it concentrates what little light there is into a gleam in a house cat's eye.  Is the asterisk here a genuine example of visual poetry, or did the typesetter run out of space and improvise grandly?  We don't care, as the result stands.  (Note that we hunted down what would appear to be the web's only other gloomy asterisk, if only to give the cat's other eye a twinkle.)