An illustration from an 1856 issue of Punch magazine.  The caption reads: "The very idea of work [in] this beautiful weather is repugnant to my feelings."

"A model hieroglyphic with sure prophecies for the next hundred years": from Punch, 1848.

"The skeleton key to getting to know ourselves is the discovery that we can get to know ourselves on many levels."
—Jerry Stocking

Riding the skeleton key into the garden of forking paths, from Punch, 1852.

An illustration from an 1890 issue of Punch magazine.  The caption reads: "Death and his brother Sleep."

We think he is only half joking: an illustration from an 1855 issue of Punch magazine.

We dug up a quotation to help explain the illustration (from Punch, 1842):

"Many scholars do not use the term 'doll' for the ritual figures used by adult women, due to a belief that this association with children's toys trivializes the ritual figures." —Philip M. Peek, African Folklore: An Encyclopedia

"The Demon Alps": an illustration from an 1890 issue of Punch magazine.

The conclusion of the "hermit's" fragments, from Punch, 1842.

Goldilocks retired as a nanny, don't you know?  Nursemaiding a bear with a turkey leg, from Punch, 1853.

"I thought you dead, or fairy bait."
—Jackie Ashton, The White Swans of Fal

This fairy on a hook appears in Punch, 1842.

An illustration from an 1855 issue of Punch magazine.  The caption reads: "Interesting group posed for a daguerreotype, by a dear friend of the family . . . Interesting and valuable result."

As bee populations decline worldwide, scientists remain reluctant to address the needless destruction wrought by angels.  An illustration from an 1868 issue of Punch magazine.

An illustration from an 1855 issue of Punch magazine.

A glass bottle from modern civilization is tossed into another world: an unmistakable precursor to the 1980 comedy film The Gods Must Be Crazy.  From Punch, 1902.

"He on her accents hung."

To wit:

He stroked his circumflex'd bar across her double acute raised dots, her lower dot, and her slash.

Risk comes with the territory — a rock monster. An illustration from an 1860 issue of Punch magazine.

It's raining cats, if not dogs.  The caption reads: "I saw many myriads of spectral kitten forms and unsubstantial egg-shapes."  From an 1895 issue of Punch.