Philosopher Gilles Deleuze suggests that there's a one-of-a-kind sort of nonsense in the magic word abraxas: it is an immobilized "pure thought" and the "highest finality of sense," like a seemingly-nonsensical one-word simile, the paradoxical conclusion of an infinite regression of propositions (a is like b, and b is like c, and c is like d, and so on forever).  "There is only one kind of word which expresses both itself and its sense—precisely the nonsense word: abraxas" (Difference and Repetition [1995]).

Does this mean "see no peacock; hear no peacock?"  We can't say.  From English Illustrated, 1889.

"Then it came on to rain 'cats and dogs.'  Then something else came."  From Judy, Or The London Serio-Comic Journal, 1872.

You know your butter spreader from your dessert knife, your steak knife from your fruit knife ... but did you know to use your asparagus knife not at the table but in the garden?  Our image is from Dreer's Garden Book, 1917.

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook.  (Previously, we examined a Hermetic secret from Ithell Colquhoun's Goose of Hermogenes, as well as her takes on volcanoes and on the two fish that swim in our sea.)

From c. 1890.

Here's a precursor to the Broadway production A Little Night Music (1973), from Lives of the Hunted by Ernest Seton-Thompson, 1901.

From In a Car of Gold by P. L. Gray, 1902.

From Wally Wanderoon and His Story-Telling Machine by Joel CHandler Harris, 1903.

From Contes De Fees, 1908.

From Baltimore and Ohio Employees Magazine, 1912.  Speaking of which, what exactly are a snowball's chances in hell?  See A Snowball's Chance in Hell.

The phrase "blink blank haberdasher" is a Googlewhack.  From Pearson's, 1908.

Here's a vintage example of "the gender identity crisis that men face during midlife and middle adulthood" (Heterosexual Masculinities: Contemporary Perspectives from Psychoanalytic Gender Theory, 2009).  From Once a Week, 1870.

"Too dreadul!  McScumble: 'Ah!  It was just a frightful dream.  I thought I was back in Scotland.'  [His friend and compatriot faints.]"  Note the little sun in the bottom left corner -- a clever device for keeping the humor from getting too dark.  From Judy, Or The London Serio-Comic Journal, 1869.

From Hunter College's Wistarion yearbook, 1918.  See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.

This celebration of centuries (Portugal, 1940) is a precursor to Time 40: A Trilogy of Time in Four Parts by Andrew Doble.  In the poster, a trilogy of centuries is written four times, all in their 40s (not that our point wasn't obvious).

From c. 1890.