From St. Nicholas magazine, 1877.

"There is dark, and there is light": a musical Yin/Yang from Beauty and the Beast: A Humorous Cantata by Edmund Rogers, 1882.  Note how the sharp and double-sharp symbols offer shimmers of light.

You've heard of "a little night music," but here's how it's properly notated.  From Очеркъ тысячелѣтней борьбы Балтійско-Полабскаго Славянства съ Нѣмцами до возрожденія Сербо-Лужицкаго племени, 1897.

"I'm/he's sole captain of this fine vessel.  Blow, my bonny boys, blow."  From Home-Theatricals Made Easy, or, Busy, Happy, and Merry by Frances Elizabeth Callow, 1891.

Luckily, our organ has a stop for "Trumpets behind the scenes."  From The Echo, An Opera in One Act by Frank Patterson, 1922.

From St. Nicholas magazine, 1898.

She's "at it," from Dicks' English Library of Standard Works, 1884.

The music of the future will be notated on cats' whiskers, as we see in The Bashful Earthquake by Oliver Herford (1899).

Ramses the Great as depicted in Sketches in Egypt by Charles Dama Gibson, 1899.  (The likeness is uncanny!)

"The 'Big Drum' in a state of abstraction," from Tom Burke of Ours by Charles James Lever, in Dicks' English Library of Standard Works, 1884.

"Auld Lang Syne" traces back to times long past, as we see in St. Nicholas magazine, 1909.

In the key of F, presumably.  From A Little Tour in Ireland by Samuel Reynolds Hole, 1892.

Did you know that musical scores can have drop caps, too?  These are from Robin Hood: A Collection of Poems, Songs, and Ballads by Joseph Ritson, 1884.

We like to say that music is timeless, but in fact the notes mature, as we see in Educational Psychology by Kate Gordon, 1917.

What are these mysteriously named musical notes from Supplement to Spons' Dictionary of Engineering, Civil, Mechanical, Military, and Naval (1879)?  We're uncomfortably reminded of the nineteen "forbidden notes" of the Boîte Diabolique, revealed in the hilarious British comedy series Look Around You.

"Even if you can't face the music or find it in you, carry a tune with you." —Bob Ripley

An illustration by Walter Frame for St. Nicholas magazine, 1912.