An illustration from Snarleyyow by Frederick Marryat (1897).  The caption reads: "Vanslyperken bent over the cur and kissed it again and again."

From Heroes of the Dawn by Violet Russell, 1914.

Our vintage illustration appears in Funny Books for Boys and Girls, 1856.

Q: "Are all parents incurably mad?" —Rudyard Kipling, Stalky & Co.

The miraculous head, from La Russie et Les Russes by Victor Tissot, 1884.

The Sphinx, drawn from memory (apparently), from Observations in the East, Chiefly in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor by John Price Durbin (1845).

"Have you noticed that in some books flocks of swallows are flying between the verses?  Stanzas of swallows.  You should learn to read from the flight of these birds."  This we learn in The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973, Poland), a dreamy film about bending time, the nature of death, eternal recurrence, and the atrocities of World War II.

From Voyage aux Pyrénées, Troisième édition by Hippolyte Adolphe Taine and illustrated by Gustave Doré, 1860.

From Festival of Song by Frederick Saunders, 1866.

From The Nightingale by Richard André, 1899.

The sphinx drawn from memory (apparently), from Ziemia Święta i Islam czyli szkice z pielgrzymki do Ziemi Świętej by Józef Sebastian Pelczar, 1875.

"Everyone always mistakes everyone for someone else." —Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, The Letter Killers Club (highly recommended!)

Q: I still remember a can of "sunlight" some long-dead relative sent to my mom as a gag gift. She put it away in a dark drawer. What else can you do with such a gift? —William Keckler

A: Pair the can of sunlight with a basket of kisses as a gift to Rhoda "The Bad Seed" Penmark.

Here's a precursor to Annie Dillard's Teaching a Stone to Talk (1982), from St. Nicholas magazine (1915).  The text reads, "Is a stone alive?"

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

La reine Marguerite and René Magritte, though this isn't either of them.

Giving a warning too late to be of any help.  It's the oldest trick in the book.  The caption reads, "Take care, Mr. Malone, the stairs are slippery."  From Shirley by Charlotte Brontë, 1897.

We laud so many discoverers, but the discoverer of grapes surely deserves rhapsodies.  From Our Country by Benson John Lossing, 1875.

"It removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and, flinging both on the floor, trampled on them."  From Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and illustrated by Frederick Henry Townsend, 1897.