Max Ernst

Pages from Une Semaine de Bonté, a collage novel by Max Ernst, first published in 1934, with images created from illustrations found in Victorian encyclopedias and novels. The page above illustrates how I feel about traveling.

Summer Clouds

Woodblock print by Gustave Baumann

Never Touched

“Cold, unimpassioned, pitiless, his sluggish blood was never moved by one single pulse of human warmth, his icy heart was never touched by one ray of mercy or one spark of pity for the hapless wretches who chanced to fall into his bloody hands.”

— From “Buccaneers and Marooners of the Spanish Main,” in Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates (1921)

Either Way

“Cheshire Puss,” she said, timidly, “which way should I go from here?”

“That depends on which way you want to go,” said the Cat. “In one direction lives a Hatter, and in another lives a March Hare; they’re both mad.”

“I don’t want to visit mad people,” said Alice.

“You can’t help it,” said the Cat. “We’re all mad here; you’re mad, or you would not have come.”

— From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: The Little Folks’ Edition (1907) by Lewis Carroll

Verses

Clips from Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses (1905) with illustrations by Jesse Willcox Smith.

Timely

“This is a case that future generations will remember. They will remember it because it will establish whether a man can so conduct his affairs that he is above the government and above the law.”  — U. S. Attorney George E.Q. Johnson, the final lawyer to address the jury at Al Capone’s tax evasion trial in October of 1931. 

“I’m not through fighting yet.” – Al Capone, as he was led away in handcuffs.

Neighbors

Art by Helen Hyde, an American who studied and practiced traditional woodblock printing, living in Japan from 1903 to 1913.

Books

Art by Saul Tepper, 1929, from Illustration, No. 56

“Come in.”

Art by Harrison Fisher, 1911.

Clumsy

“Any sufferings that Father ever had he attributed solely to God. Naturally, he never thought for a moment that God could mean him to suffer. He couldn’t imagine God’s wishing to punish him either, for his conscience was clear. His explanation seemed to be that God was clumsy, not to say muddle-headed.”

— From Life with Father (1920) by Clarence Day