The sand had already invaded it, entering it by all the crannies, and held it and refused to let it go.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

There he is, close at hand; I have brought him with me.
— from The Imaginary Invalid by Molière

I'll assure you, madam, said she, I should be as ready to cry as he, if I should do you any harm.
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

Simon Thomas was a great physician of his time: I remember, that happening one day at Toulouse to meet him at a rich old fellow’s house, who was troubled with weak lungs, and discoursing with the patient about the method of his cure, he told him, that one thing which would be very conducive to it, was to give me such occasion to be pleased with his company, that I might come often to see him, by which means, and by fixing his eyes upon the freshness of my complexion, and his imagination upon the sprightliness and vigour that glowed in my youth, and possessing all his senses with the flourishing age wherein I then was, his habit of body might, peradventure, be amended; but he forgot to say that mine, at the same time, might be made worse.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

What is curious about him is that he sits forward on his chair as if he were, from long habit, allowing space for some dress or accoutrements that he has altogether laid aside.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Then I suppose that in the city which we are founding you would make a law to the effect that a friend should use no other familiarity to his love than a father would use to his 90 son, and then only for a noble purpose, and he must first have the other’s consent; and this rule is to limit him in C all his intercourse, and he is never to be seen going further, or, if he exceeds, he is to be deemed guilty of coarseness and bad taste.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

I slept through it for a while, dreaming that I had swallowed a sovereign, and that they were cutting a hole in my back with a gimlet, so as to try and get it out.
— from Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome

This was somewhat like cutting a hole in the bottom of a ship to let the water out.
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

Once more we talked of manual labour and progress, and the mysterious Cross awaiting humanity in the remote future.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Now that my happiness is so close at hand, I feel strangely depressed.
— from The Dangerous Age: Letters and Fragments from a Woman's Diary by Karin Michaëlis

close at hand I should have parted forever with my sense of colour.
— from The Letters of Henry James (Vol. I) by Henry James

And they help to make cracks and holes in the cliffs, for as they dash with force against them they compress the air which lies in the joints of the stone and cause it to force the rock apart, and so larger cracks are made and the cliff is ready to crumble.
— from The Fairy-Land of Science by Arabella B. (Arabella Burton) Buckley

I bid you good night, sir," and reaching for cloak and hat, I hastened into the street, where the freshness and purity of the early morning air and the calming message of the steadfast stars—shining on in their clear, soft beauty, whether men pray and sleep like Christians, or dice and plot, and drink like devils, on the changeful earth beneath them—cooled my fevered brow, and helped me to restrain a seething desire to take violent vengeance upon my insulter.
— from Donald McElroy, Scotch Irishman by Willie Walker Caldwell

At other times I should have warmly welcomed the enthusiasm of this speech, and thanked him heartily for the promise of a more lucrative position, but now, crushed and hopeless, I felt that joy had left my soul for ever, and merely replied,— “I am quite satisfied to be as I am.
— from Whoso Findeth a Wife by William Le Queux

The pilgrim will be surprised to find in Portsmouth one of the most completely appointed hotels in the United States.
— from An Old Town By the Sea by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Desiring, in the present work, to set forth all which can be ascertained, together with [p. vii] such conjectures and inferences as can be reasonably deduced from it, but nothing more,—I notice, at the outset, that faulty state of the original evidence which renders discussions of credibility, and hesitation in the language of the judge, unavoidable.
— from History of Greece, Volume 01 (of 12) by George Grote

“Zey were very bold about it,” said the Count, as he lighted a piece of sugar soaked in cognac and held it over his coffee.
— from The Master of Silence: A Romance by Irving Bacheller

Proud we are of the fact that every individual man now in the greatest army that Great Britain has ever raised is serving of his own free choice, and happy indeed to be of service to his King and country in the hour of need.
— from With Our Fighting Men The story of their faith, courage, endurance in the Great War by William E. Sellers

Digby was certainly a hot inciter of the King to foolish activity; but in the light of his after history, it would seem always with a view to the complete freedom of the Catholic religion.
— from The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened by Kenelm Digby