From the Colonial Echo yearbook of the College of William and Mary, 1899.  See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.

Here's a precursor to Disneyland's Haunted Mansion's changing portraits, from The Maid of London Bridge by Somerville Gibney, 1892.  The caption reads, "Ah! thou are right, Lucy, it is changing, and growing stern and angry."

"Madhusadan proceeded to make his incantations, despite terrible sights in the air."  From Vikram and Vampire by Richard F. Burton, 1893.

"Having said this, he threw one of the sweetmeats to the dog," from Vikram and Vampire, or, Tales of Hindu Devilry, 1893.

Here's a precursor to a lyric in "Esperantolando" by Ken Clinger and Herr Purpur (from the album KCollab.01): "Speaking with a carrot, the carrot answers 'no.'"  In this earlier variety, the carrot answers, "Certainly."  From The Land of Ram by H. Rose, 1890.  (By the way, we've collaborated with Ken on songs and even entire albums for nearly two decades, and it still stings just a little that the creators of the Ken Clinger tribute album, Till Next, didn't ask us to contribute.  No matter how exclusive any circle, that circle is actually a cone with echelons.  One cannot reach the uppermost echelons without shutting others out.  And so we take some comfort — if our exclusion made someone else feel that much more elite, then how could we begrudge?  Technically, our last 17 years have been an expansive, elaborate Ken Clinger tribute, and the thought of somehow "containing" our appreciation for him on a single disc is frankly too small-minded for us to comprehend.)

"No account of Piccadilly is complete which leaves the goat out of the picture, an unexpected rural figure in the foreground."  From The Great Streets of the World, 1892.

From The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter by Ambrose Bierce, 1892.

"'What is it?' he gasped.  'I see something like blood—some crimson cord—a note—a—."  From Thrilling Stories for the Masses, 1892.

"Skipped round it in emulation of the faeries," from The Dwarf's Chamber and Other Stories by Fergus Hume, 1896.

Before our smartphones and RFID-chipped credit cards broadcast our every move, folks were tracked by their tattoos.  (From 1896.)

From Vikram and Vampire, or, Tales of Hindu Devilry, 1893.

"He crushed the nine remaining tarts into his mouth."  From The Suicide Club and The Rajah's Diamond by Robert Louis Stevenson and illustrated by W. J. Hennessy, 1894.

From Thrilling Life Stories for the Masses, 1892.

From The Letters of Charles Dickens, 1893.  Speaking of clockwork, here's a link to our vintage timepiece recordings, hailed as a brand new musical genre by a critic in Sweden: https://profoddfellow.bandcamp.com/album/clockwork-remixes.

"Almost every world map you've looked at has been wrong," some say, but not this one from Chambers's Alternative Geography Readers, 1898.

From Rhymes of the States by Garrett Newkirk, 1896.

"Sir Anthony looked despairingly at the telephone."  From Tom Chester's Sweetheart by Joseph Hatton, 1895.

"I cast myself with my face on the dewy earth.  The spirit of Stonehenge was strong upon me!"  From Lavengro; The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest by George Henry Borrow, 1896.