He was very near death.

I am aware that this is not at all the general view, but that it is believed, as old age must be near death, that it prepares the soul for that inevitable event.

"The priest did not fail to point this out; he even explained to Bovary that the Lord sometimes prolonged the life of persons when he thought it meet for their salvation; and Charles remembered the day when, so near death, she had received the communion.

He therefore left to John Trenchard everything of which he should die possessed, and being near death begged his forgiveness if he had wronged him in aught.

You'd be but a fierce young hound indeed if at your time of life you could help to hunt a wretched varmint, hunted as near death and dunghill as this poor wretched varmint is.

When the bruise had been bathed and dressed by nurse, Sir Edward still kept her on his knee, and after nurse had left the room, and the child rested her little head on his shoulder in a very subdued frame of mind, he did, what he had never done yetstooped over her and kissed her, saying: "You have been very near death this afternoon, little one, and I could ill have spared you.

As they that drink wine think all runs round, when it is in their own brain; so is it with these men, the fault and cause is inward, as Galen affirms, mad men and such as are near death, quas extra se videre putant Imagines, intra oculos habent, 'tis in their brain, which seems to be before them; the brain as a concave glass reflects solid bodies.

A heaviness near death sits on my brow, And I must sleep: Bear me thou gentle bank, For ever if thou wilt: you sweet ones all, Let me unworthy press you: I could wish I rather were a Coarse strewed o're with you, Than quick above you.

Often, when my doctors and nurses had reduced me to the last agony, and that I was near death, God took pity on me, and sent me some supernatural assistance, which effected an entire cure.'

Surely he must be very, very near death.

He turned to Buck: "Do you mean to say that after Barry's wolf cut up your arm, you've been giving Whistling Dan a shelter from the lawand from us?" "I give him a place to stay because he was damned near death," said Buck.

As he was near death he called for his funeral garments, which he had long since kept in readiness.

She had been near death's door with hunger, when the white goosey-gander had heard her call, the other day, and had sought her out.

But Theophil was now very near death, and he might forget if he lingered on much more.

"Our little Moppet has come perilously near death," said Miss Euphemia, following Pamela into the house.

"You used to irritate and insult me, sir," he said, turning to Charles, "and I was not so near death then as now.

It was a friendship, too, that was, as it were, pre-sanctified by the rising shadow of near death, fore-hallowed by the sure suffering of its coming end.

"At another time, the mother of the family was very ill, and, when apparently near death, the physicians had ordered a remedy which was to be constantly employed, as her life, so far as they could judge, depended on its use.

And I was very near death; I had a narrow escape, doctor?"

Cupid, near death of pleurisy, 196.

There he deposited him on the floor, as near death as life.

He is apparently near death.

Cornelius, a helpless sick man, seeming near death, melted my heart with his talk.

As he is so near death, that it is indifferent to him whether he died two thousand years ago or to-morrow, it is unlucky for him not to have lived when such insensibility would have been a Roman virtue.

Of this violent storm the admiral wrote thus to their Catholic majesties: "I had been less concerned at the tempest had I alone been in danger, for I know that I owe my life to my Creator, and I have often been so near death that only the slightest circumstance was wanting to its completion.