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Diffuse   Listen
verb
Diffuse  v. t.  (past & past part. diffused; pres. part. diffusing)  To pour out and cause to spread, as a fluid; to cause to flow on all sides; to send out, or extend, in all directions; to spread; to circulate; to disseminate; to scatter; as to diffuse information. "Thence diffuse His good to worlds and ages infinite." "We find this knowledge diffused among all civilized nations."
Synonyms: To expand; spread; circulate; extend; scatter; disperse; publish; proclaim.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Diffuse" Quotes from Famous Books



... we lay aside, so far as our search for Jeremiah himself and his doctrine is concerned, and we do so the more easily that they are largely devoid of the style and the spiritual value of his undoubted Oracles and Discourses. They are more or less diffuse and vagrant, while his are concise and to the point. They do not reveal, as his do, a man fresh from agonising debates with God upon the poverty of his qualifications for the mission to which God calls him, ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... correspondence was very extensive, occupying five printed volumes. Her style of writing is somewhat diffuse. In giving religious advice to many persons, there would necessarily be frequent repetitions. It has, therefore, occurred to the writer, that a selection and re-arrangement of thoughts, such as is found in this little volume, would be more ...
— Letters of Madam Guyon • P. L. Upham

... story Mr. Yeats is telling, the beauties of the poems are lyrical beauties. In exuberance and richness of color it is Mr. Yeats's most typically Irish poem based on legend, and nowhere do his lines go with more lilt, or fall oftener into inevitability of phrase, or more fully diffuse a glamour of otherworldliness. "The Wanderings of Oisin" revealed poetry as unmistakably new to his day as was Poe's to the earliest Victorian days. Beside the title poem another from legend had this new quality, "The Madness of King Goll," with its refrain that will not out of memory, "They will ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt

... spermatids are given to show the transformations of a peculiar body which seems to be characteristic of insect spermatids. Figure 79 is a very young spermatid showing only diffuse chromatin in the nucleus. The nucleus soon enlarges (fig. 80) and a large dense body (n) appears which stains like chromatin with various staining media. A little later (fig. 81) the chromatin forms a homogeneous, more or less hemispherical or sometimes crescent-shaped mass which stains an ...
— Studies in Spermatogenesis - Part II • Nettie Maria Stevens

... mixture darkens in from 7' to 10' in diffuse daylight and at 60 deg.F. it will gild well, and it generally pays to make a few trials in a test tube to arrive at this. If too much reducing solution is present the liquid will get dark more rapidly, and vice versa. The gilding will require several ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... through life the promise of his early character; that his patriotic views will extend with his power to carry wishes into action; that his attachment to his warm-hearted countrymen will still increase upon further acquaintance; and that he will long diffuse happiness through the wide circle, which is peculiarly subject to the influence and example of a great resident ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... experience, both as teacher and librarian, persuades me that the average child is eminently statistical. "A horse is an animal with four legs—one at each corner," is fairly representative of the kind of information he seeks. When he becomes diffuse, we may feel sure he has had help. Sissy Jupes are of course to be found, who ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... throw your legs over your desk, a gunny-bag, a fence-rail, or the mantel-piece of the bar-room, as the case may be; give me the benefit of your friendship and confidence, and read away at your leisure. But if you be one of those gentle beings placed upon earth to diffuse joy and happiness over the desert of life, I pray you consider me a serf at your imperial foot-stool; bend on me those tender eyes; and with the mingled respect and admiration due by all men to female loveliness, I shall proceed at once to ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... in the eyes of all good men by "voluntarily declining an office which he could not accept without alarming, offending, and disturbing his country." "Let him, from a private station, from a smaller sphere, diffuse, as I think he may, a beneficial light; but let him not be made to move and blaze like a comet, to terrify and to distress."[14] The popular majority in the Assembly withstood Mr. Dickinson's rhetoric, and, to quote the forcible language of Bancroft, "proceeded to an ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... structure for the performance of a special work or function. The protozoa developed the cell for all time to come, the coelenterata developed the tissues which still compose our bodies. But they had them mainly in a diffuse form. A sort of digestive and reproductive system they did possess. But the work of arranging these tissues and condensing them into compact organs was to be done by the next higher group, ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler

... contempt of our brethren and contention. We ought to be satisfied in our places, doing 'nothing through strife or vain glory, or with murmurings and disputings'; but endeavour, in the meekness of wisdom, to diffuse a heavenly fragrance around us, and to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... useless expenses, creates confidence in government, gives energy to its exertions, and provides the means for their continuance; to submit to his majesty that a reduction in the civil list would be an example worthy of his paternal affection for his people and his own dignity, and calculated to diffuse its influence through every department of the state; and to assure his majesty that the lords would readily concur in promoting so desirable a purpose, and that every one of its members would cheerfully submit to such reductions of emoluments as he might think proper to make. In support ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... intendant and agents taken from their own army. They lived in abundance. It was on that very point, however, that the quarrel between Macdonald and Yorck began, and that the hatred of the latter found an opening to diffuse itself. ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... fearful superstitions of paganism, falling into neglect, mouldered away. If, then, before the art of multiplying the productions of the human mind existed, the doctrines of a philosopher in manuscript or by lecture could diffuse themselves throughout a literary nation, it will baffle the algebraist of metaphysics to calculate the unknown quantities of the propagation of human thought. There are problems in metaphysics, as well as in mathematics, which can never ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... that such a little book as this has long been wanted; for of all writing, that relating to the stage is the most diffuse. It is scattered about in biography, criticism and anecdote, not unfrequently of great interest, but occupying so much "valuable" time, that to condense it, or to pick the wheat from the chaff, is no trifling task. So much for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various

... historian so diffuse, and so little selective, it would obviously be difficult to give any suitably brief specimen that should seem to present a considerable historic action in full. We go to Froissart's account of the celebrated battle of Poitiers (France). This was ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... entitled to freedom by the laws and constitutions of any of the United States, and who, notwithstanding, are detained in bondage by fraud or violence. From a full conviction of the truth and obligation of these principles; from a desire to diffuse them wherever the miseries and vices of slavery exist, and in humble confidence of the favor and support of the Father of mankind, the subscribers have associated themselves, under the title of 'The Pennsylvania Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and the Relief of ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole

... serves as a pretext for violence and rapine. Modern navigators have no other object in describing the manners of remote nations than that of completing the history of man; and the knowledge they endeavour to diffuse has for its sole aim to render the people they visit more happy, and to ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott

... inundations over the level country. On the subsidence of these waters, the intense heat of the sun acting on the surface they leave deserted, produces a noxious and fatal malaria. Hence the rivers of Ceylon present the curious anomaly, that whilst the tanks and reservoirs of the interior diffuse a healthful coolness around, the running water of the rivers is prolific of fevers; and in some seasons so deadly is the pestilence that the Malabar coolies, as well as the native peasantry, betake ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... plants bestow No spicy fragrance while they grow; But crushed or trodden to the ground, Diffuse their balmy sweets around. The Captivity, Act i. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... "We are a diffuse people," I said. "Perhaps that is the result of our mixed blood and the individuality that you spoke of, but your books are so widely read in America that I believe people in the North are quite as well informed and quite as much interested in the problem ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell

... paternal love or Briarean terror over half of Christendom. As a temporal government, rivalling kings in the pomps of war and the pride of armies, it may be passing away; but as an organization to diffuse and conserve religious truths,—yea, even to bring a moral pressure on the minds of princes and governors, and reinforce its ranks with the mighty and the noble,—it seems to be as potent as ever. It is still sending its missionaries, its prelates, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord

... Boston, she stood by the tired old woman's grave. Since then, for three days, she had been writing letters, narrating, describing to those who hadn't come; there were some, she thought, who might have managed to do so, instead of despatching her pages of diffuse reminiscence and asking her for all particulars in return. Selah Tarrant and his wife had come, obtrusively, as she thought, for they never had had very much intercourse with Miss Birdseye; and if it was for Verena's sake, Verena was there to pay every tribute herself. Mrs. ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James

... has so commanded!" said Ribas. "He loves a bright light! But, princess, cannot you remain in this boudoir for one evening? Only see how beautiful it is, how enticingly cool, with these fountains that refresh the air and diffuse fragrance! How delightfully still and snug it is! Reposing upon these velvet cushions, you can look through the whole suite of rooms, which in fact, tonight, flash and sparkle like the heavens, and yet in this boudoir there is ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... been subjected by their advisers in America. They pointed out most justly that the treaty was damaging to both the countries concerned,*3* and that in regard to the Indians of the seven towns peculiarly unjust. Both at Charcas and at Lima their memorial (though diffuse) was favourably received, and a copy remitted to the King and Council at Madrid. Ibanez, in his 'Republica Jesuitica', qualifies the action of the Jesuits in this matter as a 'great crime'. Dean Funes only sees duplicity of language, but ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... which scatters contagious tenderness through the whole theatre, but carried, though but the breadth of a hair, beyond that point, the picture becomes an overcharged caricature, as likely to create laughter as diffuse distress." Never, perhaps, has that subtle boundary-line been hit with more admirable dexterity, just within the hair's breadth here indicated, than it was, for example, in Macready's impersonation of Virginius, where his scream in the camp-scene betrayed ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... flake of fire, all raining at the same slight slope from hair-fine stems. Against the turf they looked for all the world like Chinese lanterns swung for some miniature revel of the fairies—they seemed literally to diffuse light upon the air. Ishmael stood staring, stung to excitement by that suddenly-glimpsed beauty; but Phoebe darted forward, and the next moment had withdrawn a foot whose stout country shoe and ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... camp to camp. He consorted, as we have seen, with legitimists and neo-Catholics, and allowed himself to be reckoned as one of them. Through the columns of the Globe, which had now become the organ of the Saint-Simonians, he invited the Romanticists to "step forth from the circle of pure art, and diffuse the doctrines of a progressive humanity." On the advent of Louis Philippe, he was inclined to accept the constitutional regime as the triumph of good sense, as affording a practical solution and a promise of stability. But he appears soon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... on the surface of the plate than in the inner portions because there is a constant supply of acid available at the surface, whereas the formation of sulphate in the interior of the plate requires that acid diffuse into the pores of the active materials to replace that already used up in the formation of sulphate. In the negative plate, however, the sulphate tends to form more uniformly throughout the mass of the lead, because the spongy lead is more porous ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte

... in ill-defined patches, as is commonly the case, or as a diffuse discoloration. Its appearance is rapid or gradual, generally the latter. The patches are rounded or irregular, and usually shade off into the sound skin. One, several or more may be present, and coalescence may take place, resulting ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon

... least. I'm concentrated, that's all. You diffuse yourself, dear; and though all Simla knows your skill in ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling

... largely from his predecessor and model, Jean Lebel; the later books are filled with narratives of what he saw with his own eyes, or gathered from the lips of men who had themselves been part of what they told. This fact, along with his mastery of a style which is always vivacious if sometimes diffuse, accounts for the vividness and picturesqueness of his work. The pageant of medieval life in court and camp dazzled and delighted him, and it is as a pageant that we see the Middle Ages ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... homeopathic practitioners. When contrasted with the doses of drugs given by allopathists, the small doses administered by homoeopathists must at first sight appear wholly in adequate to the purpose for which they are given; but homoeopathists, whose dilution and trituration diffuse the drug given throughout the vehicle in which it is administered, argue that by this extension of its surface the active power of the drug is greatly increased; and that there is reason in this argument is shown by the fact that large ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... natural wonder "how a Dane at that day could have such a force of eloquence" is a measure of the rarity both of the gift and of a public that could appraise it. The epitome (made about 1430) shows that Saxo was felt to be difficult, its author saying: "Since Saxo's work is in many places diffuse, and many things are said more for ornament than for historical truth, and moreover his style is too obscure on account of the number of terms ("plurima vocabula") and sundry poems, which are unfamiliar to modern times, this opuscle puts in clear words the more notable of ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... dull hours spent in idle and diffuse conversation on the dimly lighted veranda! Oh, the detestable peppered jam in the tiny pots! In the middle of the town, enclosed by four walls, is this park of five yards square, with little lakes, little mountains, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... such means that the young general, as profound a politician as he was a great captain, contrived to ingratiate himself with the people. While he flattered their prejudices for the moment, he laboured to diffuse among them the light of science by the creation of the celebrated Institute of Egypt. He collected the men of science and the artists whom he had brought with him, and, associating with them some of ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... this universal benevolence to a young gentleman, as he grows up, will be, as I humbly conceive, so to diffuse itself over his mind, as to influence all his actions, and give a grace to every thing he does or says, and make him admired and respected from the best and most durable motives; and will be of greater advantage to him for his attaining a handsome address and ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... their children up to labour, instructing them in the knowledge of their duty, and preserving them from bad impressions, were sure to meet with his encouragement and commendations. Those that had been ill he assisted with such little necessaries as tended to alleviate their pains, and diffuse a gleam of cheerfulness over their sufferings. "How hard," he would say, "is the lot of the poor when they are afflicted with sickness! How intolerable do we find the least bodily disorder, even though we possess every convenience that can mitigate its violence! Not all the dainties ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... disposed to flower the year through as the glauca, but produces its blossoms chiefly in May, June, and July; the flowers of the glauca are observed to smell more strongly in the day-time, those of the valentina at all times diffuse a very powerful odour, so as even to scent a small greenhouse; we have often been amused with hearing the different opinions entertained of this smell, some speaking of it in terms of rapture, others ready to faint when they approach it: the flowers of the valentina ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 6 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis

... exhausted by these observations. That portion of it which is most reducible to points of argument has been stated, and, I trust, truly. There are, however, some topics of a more diffuse nature, which yet deserve to be proposed ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... of their own line. On the other hand, the man of whom it was said that 'science was his forte and omniscience his foible,' has left no enduring monument behind him; and so it must always be with mortals who have only fifty years of thought allotted to them at the very most, and who diffuse it. Everyone admits the value of application, but very few are aware how its force is wasted by diffusion: it is like a volatile essence in a bottle without a cork. When, on the other hand, it is concentrated—you may call it 'narrowed' if you please—there is ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... whether the Miss Binghams imagined it a Briticism. It also occurred to me that one should never mix one's colloquialisms; but that, of course, did not prevent their coming round with us. I believe they did it partly to diffuse their guide among a larger party. He was hanging, as they came up, upon Miss Cora's reluctant earring, so to speak, and she was mechanically saying, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" to his representations. "I suppose," said she inadvertently, "there is no ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... their merits of questions of vital interest to the country. The demoralising atmosphere of partisanship which hangs over Ireland would, I am convinced, gradually give way before an organised system of education with a thoroughly democratic University at its head, which would diffuse amongst the people at large a sense of the value of a balanced judgment on, and a true appreciation of, the real forces with which Ireland has to deal ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett

... They become, too, incapable of all generous self-denial and self-sacrifice; feelings of bitterness towards every successful rival (and there are few who may not be our rivals on some one point or other) gradually diffuse themselves throughout the heart, and leave no place for that love of our neighbour which the Scriptures have stated to be the ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... enthusiastic reception by the tribe of Gudala, and the influence he was sure of maintaining over it, he formed the design of founding a sovereignty in the heart of these vast regions. Under the pretext that to diffuse a holy religion and useful knowledge was among the most imperative of duties, he prevailed on his obedient disciples to make war on the kindred tribe of Lamtuna. That tribe submitted, acknowledging his spiritual authority, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... never made public. The paper was yellowed and discolored by years, occasionally a page was missing, and the writing itself had become almost indecipherable. Much indeed had to be traced by use of a microscope. The writer was evidently a man of some education, and clear thought, but exceedingly diffuse, in accordance with the style of his time, and possessing small conception of literary form. In editing this manuscript for modern readers I have therefore been compelled to practically rewrite it entirely, ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... among the brethren, as well as with others. The Abbot cannot be humbled, but what the community must be humbled in his person. Her boast is, that over all her children, especially over those called to places of distinction, she can diffuse those gifts which are necessary to ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... excel; Blest nymphs, whose swains those graces sing so well! Now rise, and haste to yonder woodbine bowers, A soft retreat from sudden vernal showers; The turf with rural dainties shall be crown'd. While opening blooms diffuse their sweets around. 100 For see! the gath'ring flocks to shelter tend, And from ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... insist on creating the semblance of a world out of airy matter, when, at every moment, the impalpable beauty of my soap-bubble was broken by the rude contact of some actual circumstance. The wiser effort would have been, to diffuse thought and imagination through the opaque substance of to-day, and thus to make it a bright transparency; to spiritualize the burden that began to weigh so heavily; to seek, resolutely, the true and indestructible value that lay hidden in the petty and wearisome incidents, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... And, may be, that which grows beneath mine eye: Yet there are things whose strong reality Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and hues More beautiful than our fantastic sky, And the strange constellations which the Muse O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse: ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... connected, in the men who practice them, with faith in Jesus Christ. But I question very much whether these would have existed if the story of the Cross had been unknown. And sure I am that the history of non-Christian attempts to promote the brotherhood of man, and to diffuse a wide and operative love of mankind, teaches us, on the one side, that the emotion is not strong enough to last, and to work, unless it is based on God's love in Jesus Christ. And the history of Christianity, on the other ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... Talking with Mr. Bentham, he told me that the separate islands of the Sandwich Archipelago possessed distinct representative species of the same genera of Labiatae: would not this be worth your enquiry? How is it with the Azores; to be sure the heavy western gales would tend to diffuse the ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... coat, was seated at a paper-littered table. Near his elbow, upon another table, was a tray from which he had evidently dined and also a brandy bottle with several recumbent bottles of soda. Although he had so lately arrived at the hotel he had contrived to diffuse his traps over the room in an organised disarray which represented a long and careless occupation if it did not represent t'le scene of a scuffle. His pipe was ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... in a direction where God is not." He was attended on his wanderings by Mardana, a lute-player, who accompanied the hymns which he never failed to compose when a thought or adventure occurred to him. These compositions are similar to those of Kabir, but seem to me of inferior merit. They are diffuse and inordinately long; the Japji for instance, which every Sikh ought to recite as his daily prayer, fills not less than twenty octavo pages. Yet beautiful and incisive passages are not wanting. When at the temple of Jagannath, he was asked ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... ago I completed my twenty-second year. Heretofore, my religious fervor has been such that I have felt no other love than the immaculate love of God himself and of his holy religion, which I desire to diffuse and see triumphant in all the regions of the earth. I confess that something of a profane sentiment has mingled itself with this purity of affection. You are aware of this; I have told it to you many times, and you, regarding ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera

... time; the least informed with true knowledge—the least efficient in virtuous action—the least conscious of that Christian and republican freedom which, as the native atmosphere of piety and holiness, it is their prime duty to cherish and diffuse,"—Miss Martineau. I quote this paragraph to contradict it. The American clergy are, in the mass, equal, if not superior, to any in the world: they have to struggle with difficulties almost insurmountable, (as I ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... long conversation with his skilful and anxious physician Munter, who when he left him had tears in his eyes; but over Henrik's countenance, on the contrary, when he returned to his family, although he was paler than usual, was a peculiarly mild and solemn repose, which seemed to diffuse itself through his whole being. From this moment his temper of mind was changed. He was now mild and calm, yet at the same time more joyous and amiable than ever. His eyes had an indescribable clearness and beauty; the shadow ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... impulses, which come to man through study, reflection, the ennobling of feeling, and so on, are subject to the manifold changes of existence; but religious feelings impress a certain stamp of uniformity upon all thinking, feeling, and willing. They diffuse an equal and single light over the whole life ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner

... late, and the party very modest in their fear of being too diffuse, there were some tokens of separation; when Sergeant Dornton, the soldierly-looking man, said, looking ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... Jenkins' patients lived, on those broad tree-lined boulevards, those deserted quays, the mist soared immaculate, in innumerable waves, as light and fleecy as down. It was compact, discreet, almost luxurious, because the sun, slothful in his rising, was beginning to diffuse soft, purplish tints, which gave to the mist that enveloped everything, even the roofs of the rows of mansions, the aspect of a sheet of white muslin spread over scarlet cloth. One would have said that it was a great curtain sheltering the long, untroubled sleep of wealth, a thick curtain behind ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... magic, inanimate things, as well as plants and animals, may diffuse blessing or bane around them, according to their own intrinsic nature and the skill of the wizard to tap or dam, as the case may be, the stream of weal or woe. In Samaracand women give a baby sugar candy to suck and ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... Shakespeare, to come to the one after the other is like passing to a portrait by Ingres from a decoration by Rubens. At first, 'comme on a l'oeil rempli de l'eclatante verite pittoresque du grand maitre flamand, on ne voit dans l'artiste francais qu'un ton assez uniforme, une teinte diffuse de pale et douce lumiere. Mais qu'on approche de plus pres et qu'on observe avec soin: mille nuances fines vont eclore sous le regard; mille intentions savantes vont sortir de ce tissu profond et serre; on ne peut plus en detacher ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... stronger will be their spontaneous longing for immortality. The unrivalled revelation of the disinterested love of God made by Christianity, and its effect in refining and increasing the love of men, have contributed in a most important degree to sanction and diffuse the faith in a blessed life reserved for men hereafter. One remarkable specification may be noticed. The only pagan description of children in the future life is that given by some of the classic poets, who picture the infant shades lingering in groups around the dismal gates ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... his old age, a splendid monument of enlightened exertion, and he resolves that, when he can no longer call it his own, it shall preserve the relics of past literature for ages yet to come, and form a centre whence scholarship and intellectual refinement shall diffuse themselves around. We can see this influence in its most specific and material shape, perhaps, by looking round the reading-room of the British Museum—that great manufactory of intellectual produce, where so many heads are ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... on earth. The genial moralising of the latter appears childish by the side of Alfieri's terse philosophy and pregnant remarks on the development of character. What suits the page of Plautus would look poor in 'Oedipus' or 'Agamemnon.' Goldoni's memoirs are diffuse and flippant in their light French dress. They seem written to please. Alfieri's Italian style marches with dignity and Latin terseness. He rarely condescends to smile. He writes to instruct the world and to satisfy himself. Grim humour sometimes flashes out, as when he ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... Saxon poet of whom my brother had been taught to entertain the highest expectations. The exploits of Zisca, the Bohemian hero, were woven into a dramatic series and connection. According to German custom, it was minute and diffuse, and dictated by an adventurous and lawless fancy. It was a chain of audacious acts and unheard-of disasters. The moated fortress and the thicket, the ambush and the battle, and the conflict of headlong passions, were portrayed in wild numbers and with terrific energy. An afternoon ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... reviewer, be "stripped bare" by the scalpel of any literary anatomist; but he may be left to that quiet and oblivion which a sepulchre in general bestows. Before I conclude these remarks (which I fear are too diffuse), I will venture to add a few words in regard to the signature of Thomas Lord Lyttelton. In the Chatham Correspondence, a letter from him to Earl Temple is printed, vol. iv. p. 348., the signature to which ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various

... without bark, trunks of gigantic trees, covered the declivity of the hill, and barricaded, here and there, in a picturesque manner, the current of the brook which ran into the valley. A little farther up the dense wood of tufted trees contributed to diffuse that religious light half over the rocks, the brushwood and the fertile soil, and on the limpid water, which is at once the charm and the horror of old neglected woods. In this solitude, and on a space of cleared ground, rose a sort of rude hut, constructed by a poor devil who was a sabot-maker by ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... goodness crowned, Encircled in thy heavenly robe! Diffuse thy blessings all around, To every corner ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh

... turn. Rarely if ever in the history of the country have two men of such ability and astuteness participated in a local canvass. The rivalry was all the more exciting because it was a rivalry of styles as well as of capacities. Burr was smooth, polished, concise, never diffuse or declamatory, always serious and impressive. If we may accept contemporary judgment, he was a good speaker whom everybody was curious to hear, and from whom no one turned away in disappointment. On the other ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... surprises. I am sure he was a nightingale before he was Rose. An iridescence like sea-foam sparkled in him that evening, he laughed as lightly as the little tinkling mass-bells at every moment, and seemed to diffuse a rosy glow wherever he went in the room. Yet gayety was not his peculiar specialty, and at length he sat before the fire, and, taking Lu's scissors, commenced cutting bits of paper in profiles. Somehow they all looked strangely like and unlike Mr. Dudley. I pointed one ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... balmy and beautiful, with a bright array of stars, and a golden harvest moon, which seemed to diffuse even warmth with its radiance; but now Turpin was approaching the region of fog and fen, and he began to feel the influence of that dank atmosphere. The intersecting dykes, yawners, gullies, or whatever ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... and had a big seal and ribbon attached. The size of the receipt and seal was proportioned according to the amount paid—if you had a son or a daughter in Purgatory, it was wise to pay a large amount. The certificates were in Latin and certified in diffuse and mystical language many things, and they gave great joy ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... bring to his task an attention dissipated, a memory embarrassed, an imagination overwhelmed, a mind distracted with anxieties, a body languishing with disease: he will labour on a barren topick, till it is too late to change it; or, in the ardour of invention, diffuse his thoughts into wild exuberance, which the pressing hour of publication cannot suffer judgment to examine or reduce." Of this excellent production, the number sold on each day did not amount to five hundred: of course, the bookseller, who paid the author four guineas ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... us of its wondrous juice; We fought to taste it, and have won! Now o'er your hills new wealth diffuse And cherish well the warrior's boon. Plant, plant the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... in his picturesque if diffuse history of the first Afghan war, lays it down that, in seating Shah Soojah on the Cabul throne, 'the British Government had done all that it had undertaken to do,' and Durand argues that, having accomplished this, 'the British army could have then been withdrawn with the honour and ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes

... that the gingerbread was beginning to diffuse its savory odors through the house, Amy returned. A glance at her triumphant face furnished sufficient proof that her undertaking had been successful, even without the silent testimony of a large object concealed ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith

... structure the story would be full of life, character, and the most exuberant fun, but it is altogether too diffuse in its present condition for dramatic representation, and I confess I do not feel sufficient confidence in my own experience (even if I had the time, which on reflection I find I have not) to undertake what, under different circumstances, would ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... from that time more calm, and I imagined had gained a new degree of resolution; but appearances deceived me; for her tranquility was the langour of over-wrought resentment. A supply of provisions, charitably sent us by my kind parishioners, seemed to diffuse new cheerfulness amongst the rest of the family, nor was I displeased at seeing them once more sprightly and at ease. It would have been unjust to damp their satisfactions, merely to condole with resolute melancholy, or to burthen ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... may the hand of bounty bring Into the daily offering Of full provision such a store, Till that the cook cries: Bring no more. Upon your hogsheads never fall A drought of wine, ale, beer, at all; But, like full clouds, may they from thence Diffuse their mighty influence. Next, let the lord and lady here Enjoy a Christ'ning year by year; And this good blessing back them still, T' have boys, and girls too, as they will. Then from the porch may many ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... letter I took to the editor of the Daily Gazette was from an old friend of his who knew, and told him, of my exact circumstances. This gentleman received me kindly and courteously. He and his like were among the most furiously hurried in the race, but their handling of great masses of diffuse information gave them, in many cases, a wide outlook, and where, as often happened, they were well balanced as well as honest, I think they served their age as truly as any of their contemporaries, and with more effect ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... by Heaven's decree, How ill-exchanged are things like these for thee! How do thy potions, with insidious joy, Diffuse their pleasures, only to destroy. Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown, Boast of a florid vigour not their own. At every draught more large and large they grow, A bloated mass of rank, unwieldy woe; Till sapped their strength, and every part unsound, Down, down they sink, and spread ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland

... heaven; and the tradition that, at least some of them, were of the number of the Seventy, [61:3] is exceedingly probable. And if, as has already been suggested, the mission of the Seventy indicated the design of our Saviour to diffuse the gospel all over the world, we can see a peculiar propriety in the arrangement that Paul was ushered into the Church under the auspices of these ministers. [61:4] It was most fitting that he who was to be, by way ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... porcelain dish diffuse 4 parts of powdered arrowroot and one part of liquid glucose in 200 parts of distilled or rain water and dissolve by heat over an alcohol lamp, stirring all the while. Let the solution boil for an instant, and when the paste is homogeneous let it cool down and then remove the skin formed ...
— Photographic Reproduction Processes • P.C. Duchochois

... actor, in Sir Christopher Curry—in Old Dornton—diffuse a glow of sentiment which has made the pulse of a crowded theatre beat like that of one man; when he has come in aid of the pulpit, doing good to the moral heart of a people. I have seen some faint approaches to this sort of excellence in other players. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... England, was about to break into Scotland and end the dreary reign of Moderatism, there was raised up in Thomas Chalmers a mind of such capacity as completely to absorb the new movement into itself, and of such sympathy and influence as to diffuse it to every corner of his ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker

... scanty subsistence, provoked them to frequent desertion; the nerves of discipline were relaxed, and the highways were infested with robbers. The oppression of the good, and the impunity of the wicked, equally contributed to diffuse through the island a spirit of discontent and revolt; and every ambitious subject, every desperate exile, might entertain a reasonable hope of subverting the weak and distracted government of Britain. The hostile tribes of the North, who detested the pride and power of the King of the World, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... become absolutely certain that it cannot have been burning from eternity, and that a time will come when it will cease to burn. We are led to look to a beginning in which the particles of matter were in a diffuse chaotic state, but endowed with the power of gravitation; and we are led to look to an end in which the whole Universe will be one equally heated inert mass, and from which everything like life, or motion, or beauty, will have utterly ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin

... food of the American, are invaluable for a supper. Fried oysters diffuse a disagreeable odor through the house, therefore they are not as convenient in a private dwelling as scalloped oysters, which can be prepared in the afternoon, and which send forth no odor when cooking. Broiled oysters are very delicate, and are a favorite dish at an ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... drifted away behind him; and while he could hardly bear to heave his darling a moment out of his sight, the less he could endure any remark or jest upon his affection for her. His home had been a refined one, where Cecile's convent purity seemed to diffuse an atmosphere of modest reserve such as did not prevail in the court of the Maiden Queen herself, and the lad of eighteen had not seem enough of the outer world to have rubbed off any of that grace. His seniority to his little wife seemed to show itself chiefly in his being put out of ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... second example, it has been proved, chiefly by the researches of Professor Graham, that gases have a strong tendency to permeate animal membranes, and diffuse themselves through the spaces which such membranes inclose, notwithstanding the presence of other gases in those spaces. Proceeding from this general law, and reviewing a variety of cases in which gases lie contiguous to membranes, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... say, a story of simple outlines, and well adapted to the dreiserian pen. But it is spoiled and made a mock of by a donkeyish solemnity of attack which leaves it, on the one hand, diffuse, spineless and shapeless, and on the other hand, a compendium of platitudes. It is as if Dreiser, suddenly discovering himself a sage, put off the high passion of the artist and took to pounding a pulpit. It ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... from a cultivated mind, rendered her society most fascinating. "Her heart, too," writes Wraxall, her cotemporary, "might be considered as the seat of those emotions which sweeten human life, adorn our nature, and diffuse a nameless charm ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... arrangement it is that we can, by doing good to others, do so much good to ourselves! The wealthy classes, who "rise above society like clouds above the earth, to diffuse an abundant dew," should not forget this fact. The season has now about arrived, when the good people of all classes will be most busily engaged in these delightful duties. The experiment is certainly worth trying by all. If all those desponding individuals, whose chief ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... neglects you have unhappily experienced, yet they are in the utmost pain, lest they should work some change in the sentiments of the people at large, in whom with us the sovereignty resides, and from thence diffuse themselves into the government, and be productive of measures ruinous to that friendly intercourse, that spirit of amity, which it is the wish of those who are acquainted with the true interests of both countries ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various

... profuse to give any certain account of what the mind at home, in the spacious circuits of her musing, hath liberty to propose to herself, though of highest hope and hardest attempting; whether that epic form, whereof the two poems of Homer, and those other two of Virgil and Tasso, are a diffuse, and the Book of Job' a brief, ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... blue-silver and the other a glittering golden bronze—the cosmos continued to be as always. The haze from explosive fumes and rocket-fuel was, perhaps, a little thinner. The brighter stars shone through it. The gas-giant planet outward from the sun was a perceptible disk instead of a diffuse glow. The oxygen-planet to sunward showed again ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster

... publican shuts up shop and ceases to diffuse liquid poison, he does not invite the world to put up the shutters; neither will I. Actors overrate themselves ridiculously," added she; "I am not of that importance to the world, nor the world to me. I fling away a dirty old glove instead of soiling my fingers filling it with more guineas, and ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... Bureau of Education was established more than forty years ago. Its purpose is to collect and diffuse such information "as shall aid the people of the United States in the establishment and maintenance of efficient school systems and otherwise promote the cause of education throughout the country." This purpose in no way ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... day, that of slavery was freely discussed in all its bearings. It is difficult, in a single extract, to convey an adequate idea of the character of the editorial columns of a paper, where terse and concentrated irony and sarcasm alternate with eloquent appeal and diffuse commentary and labored argument. We can only offer at random the following passages from a long review of a speech of John C. Calhoun, in which that extraordinary man, whose giant intellect has been shut out ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... nitrogenous bodies have their type in the albumen of an egg; and muscle substance and the less modified living "protoplasm" of plants, a considerable proportion of the substance of seeds, bulbs, and so on, are albuminous bodies, or proteids. These also are insoluble bodies, or when soluble, will not diffuse easily through ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells

... published novel, which he was soon to imitate and recreate in his Lily in the Valley, was manifestly prejudiced. He called it a book badly written in most of its parts, weak, loosely constructed, diffuse, in which there were some good things, in short a puritanical book, the chief character of it, Madame Couaen not being woman enough. His opinion, which he imparted to Madame Hanska, he apparently took no trouble to conceal, for Sainte-Beuve was evidently ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... existence by the howling of storms, and the rushing of impetuous torrents, and contemplating, with the satisfaction of a giant, the ruins of the year, still affords ample food for enjoyments, which the vulgar never dream of, if sympathy and association diffuse their attractive spells around us! In the bosom of retirement, how delightful is it to feel exempt from the mean intrigues, the endless difficulties and tumults, which active life ensures, and which retirement enables us so well to contemplate ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various

... selling ballads on Boston streets, into a leader among men, whom two worlds have delighted to honor. Another most interesting book of biography is that of the brothers William and Robert Chambers, the famous publishers of Edinburgh, who did more to diffuse useful knowledge, and to educate the people, by their manifold cheap issues of improving and entertaining literature, than was ever done by the British ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... accumulates at all. What is accumulated, must be principally from commerce and manufactures. The system of abandoning the country and congregating in cities, tends directly to concentrate wealth into the hands of a few, and to diffuse poverty and crime among the masses ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... precious metals are imported in the ordinary way of commerce, their value must depend on the same causes, and conform to the same laws, as the value of any other foreign production. It is in this mode chiefly that gold and silver diffuse themselves from the mining countries into all other parts of the commercial world. They are the staple commodities of those countries, or at least are among their great articles of regular export; and are ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... decomposition of permanganate of potassa with strong sulphuric acid. He placed the permanganate in glass vessels, moistened it gradually with the acid, and then allowed the ozone, which is formed, to diffuse into the air. In this way he endeavored, as I had done, to purify the air of rooms, especially those vitiated by the breaths of many people. When he visited me, not very long before his death, he was enthusiastic as to the success that must attend the utilization of ozone for purification, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various



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