"Diffuse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me to be more diffuse than I should have been without it; but it gives you a bit of ancient geography which will do you no harm. There are two great rivers which extend through this territory, the Euphrates and the Tigris, though both of them unite and flow into the Persian ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... proof-reader endured ere they presented his "edited" volume to the public must have been beyond expression by words. It was a pretty good book though, and in it, like many another man of his ilk, he tendered to his much-injured wife loud and diffuse praise, ending with these sententious words, "Let no man despise advice and counsel of his ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... Jamaica is, however, the best of my correspondents, though he is occasionally afflicted with what my employer in Havana styles 'Magazine on the brain;' which means that Mr. Cannie is too prolific, and adopts a diffuse, rambling mode of imparting facts in preference to those much desired ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... nation gut kin' o' stillborn, So't wuz my pleasant dooty t' acknowledge the corn, An' I see clearly then, ef I didn't before, Thet the augur in inauguration means bore. I needn't tell you thet my messige wuz written To diffuse correc' notions in France an' Gret Britten, An' agin to impress on the poppylar mind The comfort an' wisdom o' goin' it blind,— To say thet I didn't abate not a hooter O' my faith in a happy an' glorious futur', Ez rich in each soshle an' p'litickle blessin' Ez them ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... of devotees thronging to this holy shrine. The day of pilgrimages is, indeed come back again; but they are the pilgrimages of knowledge and an enlightened curiosity. The day of that science which the saints of Iona were said to diffuse first in Britain has now risen to a splendid noon; and not the least of its evidences is that, every few days through every summer, a company like this descends on this barren strand to behold what Johnson calls "that illustrious island which was once the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... vital heat That bids my throbbing pulses beat; Soon shall that vital heat be o'er, Those throbbing pulses beat no more! No—I will breathe the spicy gale; Plunge the clear stream, new health exhale; O'er my pale cheek diffuse the rose, And drink oblivion to ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... to have been a contemporary of Tu Mu. Ch'ao Kung-wu says that he was impelled to write a new commentary on Sun Tzu because Ts'ao Kung's on the one hand was too obscure and subtle, and that of Tu Mu on the other too long-winded and diffuse. Ou-yang Hsiu, writing in the middle of the 11th century, calls Ts'ao Kung, Tu Mu and Ch'en Hao the three chief commentators on Sun Tzu, and observes that Ch'en Hao is continually attacking Tu Mu's shortcomings. ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... astute men of business who knew how to make a man talk were given diffuse and loud-voiced explanations of his methods and long-acknowledged merits and characteristics. His life, his morals, and his training, or rather lack ot it, were laid before them as examples of what a man might work himself up to if "he had it in him." Education didn't do it. He had ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the most heroic. It is to opinions from such sources as these we point, with every degree of confidence, as they cannot be charged with being prejudiced in our favor; and were we inclined to be more diffuse upon the subject, we might quote author after author, and all of English proclivities too, who bear evidence to the suggestive character of the elements of material wealth which we possess in every relation, and ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... of different authors, representing periods of time extending over many centuries, are all comprehended between the covers of a single volume. There is no greater monument of the power of printing to diffuse thought than this fact, that the whole classic literature of one of the world's greatest peoples can be carried about in the ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... 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, ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... already made some extracts from this collection of "Various Epistles" and the reader, from the specimens thus submitted to him, will have formed some conception of the character of the author's style. That style is diffuse and turgid, marked in an eminent degree with the prevailing faults of the sixth century, an age of literary decay, when the language of Cicero and Virgil was falling into its dotage. There is much ill-timed display of irrelevant learning, and a grievous absence ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... form of chronic inflammation—neuritis, periostitis, etc. Of central neuralgiae, I have had excellent results in the sympathetic variety and in the pains of posterior spinal sclerosis, while in the neuralgiae of cerebral origin (diffuse cerebral sclerosis, tumors, etc.) I have never met ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig
... decay, like the Poke! I confess that it excites me to behold them. I cut one for a cane, for I would fain handle and lean on it. I love to press the berries between my fingers, and see their juice staining my hand. To walk amid these upright, branching casks of purple wine, which retain and diffuse a sunset glow, tasting each one with your eye, instead of counting the pipes on a London dock, what a privilege! For Nature's vintage is not confined to the vine. Our poets have sung of wine, the product of a foreign plant which commonly they never saw, as if our own plants had no juice ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... interested in its passage. The promoters of the bill are florists, who undoubtedly seek to advance floriculture. The declared object of the proposed incorporation is, however, stated in the bill to be "the elevation and advancement of horticulture in all its branches, to increase and diffuse the knowledge thereof, and for kindred purposes in the ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... this itself, by reason of its excellence on the one hand or its depravity on the other, is, under the law of life, contributory to the operation of the divine spirit (which is the sole effective energy) or a deterrent. I have tried at long last to gather up this diffuse argument for the supremacy of spiritual force as it works through the individual, and to place it before you in this concluding lecture. Perhaps I can best emphasize ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... style, so stupidly handled by the prelates, recruited new strength and in a manner recovered its masculine vigor. Under his guise of moderation, this academician exuded gall. The discourse which he delivered to Parliament in 1848 was diffuse and abject, but his articles, first printed in the Correspondant and since collected into books, were mordant and discerning under the exaggerated politeness of their form. Conceived as harangues, they contained a certain strong muscular energy and were ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... Hence, too, the first group approved of Philips' efforts to create a fresh and simple pastoral manner. As a poet, Purney moved sharply away from the classical pastoral by curiously blending an entirely original subject matter with a sentimentalized realism and a naive, diffuse expression; and as a critic he pointed in the direction of Shenstone and Allan Ramsay by emphasizing the tender, admitting the use of earthy realism in the manner of Gay, and recommending for pastoral ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... no time for single sentiment!" he shouted. "Everybody should be perfectly plural to-night—everything should be plural, multiple, diffuse, all embracing, general, ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... that I gained a great interest in the science of education, and acquired profound misgivings as to the nature of the intellectual process known by the name of secondary education. More and more I began to perceive that it is conducted on diffuse, detailed, unbusiness-like lines. I tried my best, as far as it was consistent with loyalty to an established system, to correct the faulty bias. But it was with a profound relief that I found myself suddenly provided with a literary task of deep interest, and enabled ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... due submission to parental authority. Two letters announced this determination to the Baronet and his nephew. The latter barely communicated the fact, and pointed out the necessary preparation for joining his regiment. To his brother, Richard was more diffuse and circuitous. He coincided with him in the most flattering manner, in the propriety of his son's seeing a little more of the world, and was even humble in expressions of gratitude for his proposed assistance; was, however, deeply concerned that it was now, unfortunately, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... as energy, but which at all events simulates a vital principle resembling heat, seeking to escape into space, where it cools. Thus the stars, having blazed until their vital principle is absorbed in space, sink into relative torpor, or, as the astronomers say, die. The trees and plants diffuse their energy in the infinite, and, at length, when nothing but a shell remains, rot. Lastly, our fleshly bodies, when the union between mind and matter is dissolved, crumble into dust. When the involuntary partnership between mind and matter ceases through death, it is possible, or at least ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... 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 a bride Unto the holy temple ride: And thence return, short prayers said, A wife most ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... misconduct prevents the establishment of any manufactures, or the outlay of any money amongst them. Who will carry his machinery to a country where—though he may be a good master and a kind friend, though he may give occupation to hundreds and diffuse wealth among thousands—his spindles may be stopped at the beck of a priest, and his machinery left to rust at the dictate of Mr O'Connell. Independent men do not wish to lose all self-control—to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... guarantee, and with a scheme of free scholarships, an educational "ladder" more generous than anything which has yet been realised in fact. Godwin objects that State-regulated institutions will stereotype knowledge and make for an undesirable permanence and uniformity in opinion. They diffuse what is known and forget what remains to be known. They erect a system of authority and separate a tenet from the evidence on which it rests, so that beliefs cease to be perceptions and become prejudices. No Government is to be trusted with the dangerous ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... they had come upon the scene, and Captain Peel expressed himself in terms of warm laudation of their gallantry, quickness, and presence of mind. Then the sailors were called up, and their story, although longer and more diffuse than that told by the Warreners, was yet substantially the same, and Captain Peel told the men that they ought not to have wandered in that way into the slums of Cawnpore, but that beyond that indiscretion they ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... the crowd of common ideas which your poets embellish with their melody and their images, are in prose, cold and dry, while their vivacity of style renders them more fatiguing. The language of the greater part of the prose-writers of the present day is so declamatory, so diffuse, and so abundant in superlatives, that their work seems written to order, in hackneyed phraseology, and for conventional natures; it does not once enter into their heads that to write well is to express one's thoughts and character. Their style is an ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... diffuse the Word of God it is the duty, as well as the right of the Church, as the guardian of faith, to see that the faithful are not misled by ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... Bourbourg are valuable. They relate chiefly to matters not always understood, and seldom discussed with care, by those who merely visit and describe the monuments, such as the writing, books, and traditions of the ancient Mexican and Central American people. His style is diffuse, sometimes confused, and rather tedious; and some of his theories are very fanciful. But he has discovered the key to the Maya alphabet and translated one of the old Central American books. No careful student of American archaeology can ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... all work of a dramatic kind, comes last. Just put the terms of the problem the other way round. Give descriptions, to which our language lends itself so admirably, instead of diffuse dialogue, magnificent in Scott's work, but colorless in your own. Lead naturally up to your dialogue. Plunge straight into the action. Treat your subject from different points of view, sometimes in a side-light, sometimes retrospectively; vary your methods, in fact, to diversify your work. You may ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... on "Burials." Thus De Grassis and his mule, equally respectable, would have come down to posterity, had not the story by some means got wind! An incident of this nature is recorded in Portuguese history, contrived with the intention to keep up the national spirit, and diffuse hopes of the new enterprise of Vasco de Gama, who had just sailed on a voyage of discovery to the Indies. Three stones were discovered near Cintra, bearing in ancient characters a Latin inscription; a sibylline oracle addressed prophetically "To the Inhabitants of the West!" ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... each other, they are mutually attracted, like two bodies charged with different kinds of electricity—an interchange of commodities takes place, repulsion follows, and thus reenforced, they separate to diffuse the supply ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... These fantastic crags. The deadly silence. The nights, almost two weeks of Earth-time in length, congealed by the deadly frigidity of Space. The days of black sky, blaring stars and flaming Sun, with no atmosphere to diffuse the daylight. Days of weird blending sheen of illumination with most of the Sun's heat radiating so swiftly from the naked Lunar surface that the outer temperature still was cold. And day and night, always the familiar beloved Earth-disc hanging poised up near the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... gold of that land is good." But they must first understand, that education, in its deepest sense, is not the equaliser, but the discerner, of men;[1] and that, so far from being instruments for the collection of riches, the first lesson of wisdom is to disdain them, and of gentleness, to diffuse. ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... most undesirable position possible. They were outside the Solarian fleet, and their ships were lighted by the glare of the sun. The defenders, on the other hand, were in such a position that the enemy could see only the "night" side of them—the shadowed side—and, as there was no air to diffuse the light, they were exceedingly hard to find. In the bargain, the radium paint was making life for the Nigrans a brief ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... elegant way in which he could do nothing and yet diffuse an air of importance, was impressive to her admiring soul. The clerical whiskers and the military dress ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... properly drained death will take place in a very short time. I say death is inevitable without surgical treatment. In this I appear to be more radical than the most radical, for the best authors have much to say about perforation, diffuse peritonitis, and of patients who live after perforation, as though it were a common occurrence; I ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.
... Marquis, is so conspicuous on all occasions, that I never wonder at any fresh proof of it; but your late purchase of an estate in the colony of Cayenne, with a view of emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous and noble proof of your humanity. Would to God a like spirit might diffuse itself generally into the ...
— Slavery: What it was, what it has done, what it intends to do - Speech of Hon. Cydnor B. Tompkins, of Ohio • Cydnor Bailey Tompkins
... legacy of the war and of that Peace of Paris which had added an immense territory to the Empire. When the diplomats of England and France at last discovered, in some mysterious manner, that it had "pleased the Most High to diffuse the spirit of union and concord among the Princes," the world was informed that, as the price of "a Christian, universal; and perpetual peace," France would cede to England what had remained to ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... confusions. They will always suffer much and long, before they are effectually roused; nothing, therefore, can kindle the flame but such oppressions of some classes or order in society as give able men the opportunity of seconding the general mass; discontent will diffuse itself around; and if the Government take not warning in time, it is alone answerable for all the burnings and all the plunderings and all the devastation and ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... prejudice which successive critics, and (very mischievously) Brunetiere in particular, have shown with regard to the character of La Rochefoucauld, is due, in my opinion, to the influence of Victor Cousin, who published, in 1854, a disjointed and diffuse, but in many ways brilliantly executed volume on Mme de Sable. Cousin, who examined, for the first time, a vast array of MS. sources, deliberately lowered the value of La Rochefoucauld in order to enhance ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... shores; and, lastly, to the existence of an open sea, which bounds its northern confines. Europe would therefore become colder* if Africa were to be overflowed by the ocean; of if the mythical Atlantis were to arise and connect Europe with North America; or if the Gulf Stream were no longer to diffuse the warming influence of its waters into the North Sea; or if, finally, another mass of solid land should be upheaved by volcanic action, and interposed between ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... hilarity; and, though the old hall may have resounded in its time with many a scene of broader rout and revel, yet I doubt whether it ever witnessed more honest and genuine enjoyment. How easy it is for one benevolent being to diffuse pleasure around him; and how truly is a kind heart a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity to freshen into smiles! the joyous disposition of the worthy Squire was perfectly contagious; he was happy himself, and disposed to make all the world happy; and the little eccentricities ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... which was the most diffuse and the most captious of all, the following curious question was put to the accused: "When you were before Jargeau, what was it you were wearing behind your helmet? Was ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... the ancients were inferior, and therefore they enjoyed less happiness. The present state of Europe is vastly preferable to what it was in any former period. And "the plan of this divine drama is opening more and more." In the future, Knowledge will increase and accumulate and diffuse itself to the lower ranks of society, who, by degrees, will find leisure for speculation; and looking beyond their immediate employment, they will consider the complex machine of society, and in time understand it better than those ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... when feeling one's pulse, they produced the largest and most audibly-ticking gold watches producible by the horologist's art. They had what were called "the courtly manners of the old school"; were diffuse in style, and abounded in periphrasis. Thus they spoke of "the gastric organ" where their successors talk of the stomach, and referred to brandy as "the domestic stimulant." When attending families where religion was held in honour, they were ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... creed has had. The Political Economy Club is shown by Ashley to have been the assembly of the elders of the Church, of which the founder assumed that they possessed a complete code, representing just principles necessary to "diffuse." The Club was to watch for the propagation of any doctrine hostile to sound views. The sect grew rapidly from the small body of Utilitarian founders, and conquered all the statesmen who rejected the other opinions of James Mill. ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... where there are differences, Payne's translation is invariably the clearer, finer and more stately of the two. Payne is concise, Burton diffuse. [466] ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... other hand, culture, intellectual versatility, sound and practised judgment, which was tried and rarely found wanting in delicate and even dangerous situations, did not suffice in the case of Mr. Matthews to redeem the shortcomings of a diffuse and ineffective personality. ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... yourself. Most people won't notice it." And he walked on, stopping to chat with an acquaintance here and there, and doing his unofficial part to diffuse confidence. ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Canonical Discharge of their various Duties, 8vo. The author of this useful work, which appears not to have been seen by Lowndes, says, in his advertisement, "The works which are already extant on Ecclesiastical Law, being either too diffuse or too concise for ready reference and practical use, the compiler of this volume has endeavored to remedy this defect by the publication of the ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.26 • Various
... and change their wandering life for fixed abodes. He had to do, therefore, more prominently not with the administrators of law, but with the people; and accordingly his precepts assume a hortatory character, and his style becomes more diffuse and flowing. ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... that all of them would answer that a power was thereby given to Congress to fix on the towns, court-houses, and other places throughout our Union at which there should be post-offices, the routes by which the mails should be carried from one post-office to another, so as to diffuse intelligence as extensively and to make the institution as useful as possible, to fix the postage to be paid on every letter and packet thus carried, to support the establishment, and to protect the post-office and mails from robbery ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... were various and diffuse: sometimes upon literary articles [she was very attentive upon this]; sometimes upon the public entertainments; sometimes amusing each other with the fruits of the different correspondencies we held with persons abroad, with whom ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... property of oils, and liquid insulation in general, when subjected to rapidly changing electric stresses, is to disperse any gaseous bubbles which may be present, and diffuse them through its mass, generally long before any injurious break can occur. This feature may be easily observed with an ordinary induction coil by taking the primary out, plugging up the end of the tube upon which the secondary is wound, and filling it with some fairly transparent insulator, ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla
... deceit. His heart need not, according to the 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 ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... father till he was nine years old. Peter was a rare and unwelcome guest in his own family, and a son who loved his mother could have little affection for a father who had ever been that mother's worst persecutor. From his sixth to his ninth year Alexius was educated by the diffuse and pedantic Vyazemsky, but after the removal of his mother to the Suzdal Prokovsky Monastery he was confided to the care of learned foreigners, who taught him history, geography, mathematics and French. In 1703 Alexius was ordered to follow the army to the field ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... fascinating of all. The "Trilogy" ("Walkuere," "Siegfried," "Goetterdaemmerung," with the "Rheingold" as introduction) is a very unequal work. It is full of Wagner's most inspired writing and most marvellous orchestration; but it is too long and too diffuse. The plot also is strangely confused and uninteresting, and fails alike as a story and as a vehicle of theories, morals, or religion. "Parsifal," with its sacred allegory, its lofty nobility of tone, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... other and disappear from view. (Shown in dropping salt in water.) At the same time they mix with the solvent, forming a solution, from which they separate only with great difficulty. For this reason solids in solution can diffuse through porous partitions along with the solvents in which they are ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... had elapsed from the day when the Canon of Thorn expired while holding in his faltering hands the first copy of the work which was to diffuse so bright and pure a flood of glory upon Poland, when Wuertemberg witnessed the birth of a man who was destined to achieve a revolution in science not less fertile in consequences, and still more difficult of execution. This man was Kepler. Endowed with two qualities ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... are more precise and detailed. One example described was castrated in full winter plumage in December 1906. On July 11, when normally it would have been in eclipse, the nuptial plumage was unmodified except for a diffuse light-brown coloration on the abdomen, which is stated to be due not to any growth of new feathers but to pigmentary modification in the old. By September 1 this bird was almost in eclipse but not quite; curl feathers in the tail had disappeared, ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... we include the usual properties of the atmosphere which minister to health and vegetation, for it has been justly remarked that Syria has three climates. The summits of Libanus, for instance, covered with snow, diffuse a salubrious coolness in the interior; the flat situations, on the contrary, especially those which stretch along the line of the coast, are constantly subjected to heat, accompanied with great humidity; while the adjoining plains of the desert are scorched by the rays of a burning sun. The ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... Alcala, Salamanca, and Coimbra. Like Bellarmine Suarez was a man of great personal piety, well versed in the writings of the Fathers and in the literature of the Reformers. His works are clear and well arranged but somewhat too diffuse. The last edition (Vives) of his works was published at Paris (1856-61). /John de Lugo/ (1583-1660) was born at Madrid, went to Salamanca to study law, and there joined the Jesuits. He lectured first at Valladolid, and later on at Rome where he attracted crowds of students, and he was created ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... ideas which seem so exactly to describe the dynamic order of nature are not repetitions of their natural counterpart: for mathematical form in nature is a web of diffuse relations enacted; in the mind it is a thought possessed, the logical synthesis of those deployed relations. To run in a circle is one thing; to conceive a circle is another. Our mind by its animal roots (which render it relevant to the realm of matter ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... too rich, because it is the tendency of the commercial, and more especially of the manufacturing system, to collect wealth rather than to diffuse it. Where wealth is necessarily employed in any of the speculations of trade, its increase is in proportion to its amount. Great capitalists become like pikes in a fish-pond who devour the weaker fish; and it is ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... although he enjoys a very wide reputation in his own country and wherever Spanish is read. His Episodes Nacionales, some fifty-six in number, attract by their close attention to detail, which gives an air of actuality to the most diffuse of his stories. They are careful and very accurate studies of different episodes of national life, in which the author introduces, among the fictitious characters round whom the story moves, the real actors ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... the cold that comes so suddenly with darkness as the sun sets. So rare is the atmosphere of Mars that it absorbs very little heat from the sun. During the daylight hours it is always extremely hot; at night it is intensely cold. Nor does the thin atmosphere refract the sun's rays or diffuse its light as upon Earth. There is no twilight on Mars. When the great orb of day disappears beneath the horizon the effect is precisely as that of the extinguishing of a single lamp within a chamber. From brilliant light you are plunged ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... sovereign's happiness to pay any regard to the calamities of another capital, and the courtly poet was but giving utterance to the unanimous feeling of her subjects when he spoke of the princess's birth as calculated to diffuse universal joy. Daughters had been by far the larger part of Maria Teresa's family, so that she was, consequently, anxious for another son; and, knowing her wishes, the Duke of Tarouka, one of the nobles whom she admitted to her intimacy, laid her a small wager that they ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... sordidness, oppression, and shame? Why can not we rise to noble conceptions of our destiny? Why do we not feel that our work as a nation is to carry freedom, religion, science, and a nobler form of human nature over this continent? And why do we not remember that to diffuse these blessings we must first cherish them in our own borders, and that whatever deeply and permanently corrupts us will make our spreading influence a curse, not a blessing, to this New World? It is a common idea in Europe that we are destined ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... though I have said that the money circulates back, it is a long time before that happens. Then, Sir, a man of family and estate ought to consider himself as having the charge of a district, over which he is to diffuse civility and happiness[708].' ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... transformation of the astral body. These lesser 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 of ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... not charity when gifts are given from other considerations, as when animals are fed that they may be used, or presents given by lovers to bind affection, or to slaves to stimulate labour. It is found where man, seeking to diffuse happiness among all men—those he loves, and those he loves not—digs canals and pools, makes roads, bridges, and seats, and plants trees for shade. It is found where, from compassion for the miserable and the poor, who have none to help them, a man erects resting-places ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... peculiarity of mind or character are reflected in the style. It may be gay, humorous, serious, sad, melancholy, according to the state of the writer's feelings. It may be colloquial or stately, concise or diffuse, plain or florid, flowing or abrupt, feeble or energetic, natural or affected, commonplace or epigrammatic,—as varied, in fact, as the character and mental constitution of the writers. But every writer has a prevailing ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... in making this migration to Dalton Hall, Dudleigh was regardful of many things besides the patient. He had made every arrangement for the comfort of the occupants. He had sought out all the domestics that were necessary to diffuse an air of home over such a large establishment, and had been careful to submit them to Edith for her approval. He had also procured horses and grooms and carriages, and every thing that might conduce to the comfort of life. The old solitude and loneliness were thus terminated. The new ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... foretells "the fortunes of Italy in the ensuing centuries," and is a rheotorical piece, diffuse and declamatory, and therein quite the opposite of Dante. It manifests Byron's self-conscious habit of submitting his theme to himself, instead of losing himself in his theme. He is Dante in exile, and Gemma Donati is ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... book, though abrupt and unconnected in style, is one of the most elevated passages in Plato. The religious feeling which he seeks to diffuse over the commonest actions of life, the blessedness of living in the truth, the great mistake of a man living for himself, the pity as well as anger which should be felt at evil, the kindness due to the suppliant and the stranger, have the temper ...
— Laws • Plato
... story of fact; it is also a story of mental struggle. I shall not, therefore, be considered too diffuse if I say that this unlooked for ending to my unhappy adventure threw me into a strange turmoil of feeling, from which I had no rest until the next day came. That they should promise to restore the will, to obtain which they had resorted to measures almost criminal ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... blazing away to their dear heart's content. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the dearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... which the sensibility of individuals is more immediately awake, contributes, more than any other circumstance, to impressing upon the minds of the people, affection, esteem, and reverence towards the government. This great cement of society, which will diffuse itself almost wholly through the channels of the particular governments, independent of all other causes of influence, would insure them so decided an empire over their respective citizens as to render them at all times a complete counterpoise, and, not unfrequently, ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... each separately, under the title Gan Na'ul ("The Locked Garden", Berlin, 1765); the other parts never appeared in print. They bear witness to their author's solid scientific attainments, and it is regrettable that their value is obscured by his style, diffuse to the point of prolixity. Besides, Wessely contributed to the German translation of the Bible, and to the commentary on the Bible, both, as mentioned before, works presided over by Mendelssohn, to whom he was attached by the tie of ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... La Croix, 'Le Journal du Peuple,' by Dubose, 'Le Courier Francais,' by Chatelain, 'La Commerce,' by Bert, 'La Minerve,' by Lemaine, 'La Presse,' by Girardin, and all the journals in Paris which diffuse true ideas upon labor and the rights of the people, be they in other respects what they may. Even the 'Charivari,' which views the old King and his Ministers as fair butts of ridicule, perceives a marked increase in its patronage since it commenced that course, which sudden ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... expression of his eyes is concealed by spectacles. His early tendency to obesity having increased, Lord Byron is now enormously fat,—so fat as to give the impression of a person quite overladen with his own flesh, and without sufficient vigor to diffuse his personal life through the great mass of corporeal substance which weighs upon him so cruelly. You gaze at the mortal heap; and, while it fills your eye with what purports to be Byron, you murmur within ...
— P.'s Correspondence (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the man,—all for his theme and his purpose, nothing for himself. Crude in style, full of the superficial errors of carelessness and haste, rarely diffuse, often brief to a fault, they bear on every page the palpable ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... the Han and Wu dynasties (25-280 A. D.), we are told, were too diffuse, and those of the later periods, the T'ang and Sung dynasties, too literal. The best is said to be that by Ko-so-gai, a priest of Tibetan descent, which was made during the early Wei dynasty, about 252 A. D. This may ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... Agriculture.—The duties of the Secretary of Agriculture are, "To acquire and diffuse among the people of the United States useful information on subjects connected with agriculture in the most comprehensive sense of that word." The activities of the department are along many lines, as indicated by the names of ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James
... and diffuse conversation Prayers swallowed like pills by invalids at a distance Trees, dwarfed by a Japanese process Which I should find amusing in any ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Immortals of the French Academy • David Widger
... 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 ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... through the silky tufts, making of each a 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 white ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... General Howard, commanding the Eleventh Corps at Chancellorsville, "was victorious. Even his enemies praise him; but, providentially for us, it was the last battle he waged against the American Union. For, in bold planning, in energy of execution, which he had the power to diffuse, in indefatigable activity and moral ascendency, he stood head and shoulders above his confreres, and after his death General Lee could not replace him."* (* Battles and Leaders ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... within and required only the developed instrument for his utterances, and that she had been mentalised with obscuring educational matters and required a re-awakening of a naturally splendid and significant power; that I must seek to diffuse her real self through her expression. The time came that when she was absent, we all deeply missed her presence from ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... 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 as a ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... period Christianity has prevailed in Europe, and formed the great bond of the social happiness and the great source of the intellectual eminence enjoyed in that quarter of the globe. Let us hope that the exertions now made to diffuse its blessings over the benighted portions of the earth will prove successful, and that "peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety" will prevail ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... domestic purposes, large quantities are every season consumed in making starch, which is the pure fecula of the grain obtained by steeping it in water and beating it in coarse hempen bags, by which means the fecula is thus caused to exude and diffuse through the water. This, from being mixed with the saccharine matter of the grain, soon runs into the acetous fermentation, and the weak acid thus formed by digesting on the fecula renders it white. After setting, the precipitate is washed several times, and put by in square cakes and ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... the Adi Samaj, aiming to diffuse the truths of Theism among their own nation, the Hindus, have naturally adopted a Hindu mode of propagation, just as an Arab Theist would adopt an Arabian mode of propagation, and a Chinese Theist ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... of a quite different character to any we had seen before. They darted about like a comet, coming from the side by the harmonium, or near the fireplace. They were evanescent, and apparently of diffuse luminosity, within which was a nucleus of light, not, however, visible to me. We had some ten or twelve of these, some more brilliant than others, some visible both in the looking-glass and in the glass of the book-case, and they were showing a trail of reflected light on the ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... is it we should have received (the kingdom). We will diffuse (his virtue), ever cherishing the thought of him; Henceforth we will seek only the settlement (of the kingdom). It was he through whom came the appointment of Ku. Oh! let us ever cherish ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... 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, or upon the ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... face of heaven, which from afar Comes down upon the waters; all its hues, From the rich sunset to the rising star, Their magical variety diffuse: And now they change: a paler shadow strews Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues With a new color as it gasps away, The last still loveliest, till—'tis ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the initial lesion and diffuse the disease poison through the system. Nature takes up the work of elimination by means of skin eruptions and ulcers in various parts of the body, but these also are promptly suppressed with mercurial ointments and other alternatives. This process of suppression is continued for months and years, ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... nothing more," he said. "That girl's too diffuse—she spreads herself. She might have painted if she'd been poor; though that's ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... reply was diffuse and intemperate. Alicia gathered from it that her rage had its source in a declaration her son had made to her of his affection for his cousin, and his resolution of marrying her as soon as he was of age; which open avowal of his ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... must needs be rare, because it destroys a piece of us (makes our precious piece of chagrin skin, as in Balzac's story, shrink each time). And, as we have seen, it destroys (which is more important than destruction of mere life) our sensibility to those diffuse, long-drawn, gentle, restorative pleasures which are not merely durable, but, because they invigorate our spirit, are actually reproductive of themselves, multiplying, like all sane desirable things, like grain and fruit, ten-fold. Pleasures ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... of the same story, translated by Kindersley, in his specimens of Hindu Literature. The third book of the poem of Sriharsha, containing 135 slokas, is entirely occupied with the conversation between Damayanti and the swans (the geese), in which the birds to excite her love, dwell with diffuse eloquence ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman
... however, presently, and then you will be a little better I do hope and trust—and the proofs, in the meanwhile, will do somewhat less harm than the manuscript. You will take heart again about 'Luria' ... which I agree with you, is more diffuse ... that is, less close, than any of your works, not diffuse in any bad sense, but round, copious, and another proof of that wonderful variety of faculty which is so striking in you, and which signalizes itself both in the thought ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... work! That is what Revolte was to Andre—the first work, always too copious and diffuse, into which the author tosses first of all a whole lifetime of ideas and opinions, pressing for utterance like water against the edge of a dam, and which is often the richest, if not the best, of an author's productions. As for the fate that awaited it, no one ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... otherwise, and for all we are so poor, we can yet have ceremonial. When the child was born were we not in direst danger? Such danger that all his royal father could do in honor of the glad event was to break a musk-bag before his faithful followers as sign that the birth of an heir to empire would diffuse itself like perfume through the whole world? Even so now, and if I cannot devise some ceremony, then am ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... Jew. For nearly a century no one believed in the good tidings except Jews. They nursed the sacred flame of which they were the consecrated and hereditary depositaries. And when the time was ripe to diffuse the truth among the ethnics, it was not a senator of Rome or a philosopher of Athens who was personally appointed by our Lord for that office, but a Jew of Tarsus, who founded the seven churches ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... on the established religion, and the dark and 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
... Ah! still diffuse thy genial ray, Fair Science, on my Albion's plain! And still thy grateful homage pay Where Montagu has rear'd her fane; Where eloquence and wit entwine Their attic wreath around her shrine; And still, while Learning ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... between your teeth; 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, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... longer 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 augment their means ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott
... These windows may, of course, be of any shape and size whatever, according to the other necessities of the building, and the quantity and direction of light desired, their purpose being now to throw it in streams on particular lines or spots; now to diffuse it everywhere; sometimes to introduce it in broad masses, tempered in strength, as in the cathedral colored window; sometimes in starry showers of scattered brilliancy, like the apertures in the roof of an Arabian bath; perhaps the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... whole explanation. It seems that notice was required of this change: in mere equity, proclamation must be made of the royal pleasure as to the Irish sedition: that was done in the Queen's speech on adjourning the two Houses. But time also must be granted for this proclamation to diffuse itself, and therefore it happened that the Clontarf meeting was selected for the coup d'essai of Government; in its new character for "handselling" the new system of rigour, this Clontarf assembly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... the compass of a few pages, it comprises more of ethics and politics, more fine delineations of character, more substance and pith (suc), than can be collected from many a ponderous volume. It is not one of those barely agreeable descriptions, which gradually diffuse their influence over the soul, and leave it in undisturbed tranquillity. It is a picture in strong light, like the subject itself, full of fire, of sentiment, of lightning-flashes, that go at once to the heart. We imagine ourselves in Germany; we become familiar ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... individual inertness and dulness; nevertheless, it is also true that certain great ideas rapidly clarify themselves in the thought of almost every century. They are opposed and rejected by a multitude, but they are in the air, as we say; they seem to diffuse themselves through all fields of thought, and they are often worked out harmoniously in different departments by men who have no concert of action, but whose minds are open and sensitive to these invisible currents ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... 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 ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... warm heart; you, with that pure enthusiasm for what is fresh and good; you, who can even admire a thing like Varney, because, through the tawdry man, you recognize art and skill, even though wasted in spoiling canvas; you, who have only to live as you feel, in order to diffuse blessings all around you,—fie, foolish boy! you will own your error when I tell you why I come from my rooms at Gray's Inn to see the walls in which Hampden, a plain country squire like you, shook with plain words the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... finds, with the rarest exceptions, that the leaves fall earlier in the season, and assume before falling a brighter tint; that they are less deeply toothed or serrated; that the buds are smaller; that the trees are more diffuse in growth and have fewer branchlets; and, lastly, that the seeds are smaller—all in comparison with the corresponding European species. Now, considering that these trees belong to distinct orders, it is out of the question that the peculiarities just specified should have been ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... particular manner to such of their fellow-creatures as are 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, ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... is no better word than "lost" by which to translate smarrita in this place; yet the two words are far from equivalent in force. About the word smarrita there is thrown a wide penumbra of meaning which does not belong to the word lost. [35] By its diffuse connotations the word smarrita calls up in our minds an adequate picture of the bewilderment and perplexity of one who is lost in a trackless forest. The high-road with out, beaten hard by incessant overpassing of men and beasts and wheeled vehicles, gradually becomes metamorphosed ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... from rose to lilac; already the mountains were growing fairy-like under that vague, diffuse lustre which heralds the rise of the full moon. It rose, enormous, yellow, unreal, becoming imperceptibly silvery as it climbed the sky and hung aloft like a stupendous arc-light flooding the world with a radiance so white and clear that I could very easily ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... Harned, however, escaped from her play. She is an emotional actress of considerable force, as she showed us in her production of "The Lady of the Camelias." She has the power of repression. She is artistic, sincere and graceful. Her work in this diffuse play proved that beyond the peradventure of a doubt, so that her engagement at the Hudson Theater need not be unduly deplored. The Gloucester of John Blair was extremely amusing. Such a Richard, the most imaginative imaginer could never have dreamed of! He played the part as though the Duke ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... not be told, that the Roman Poet who had the advantage of improving upon so many originals, takes in a greater variety of subjects than any of his predecessors, and runs into more diffuse and diversified measure. I have said, my Lord, that his subjects are more diversified, because in the character of a Lyric Poet we must consider him as a professed imitator both of Anacreon and of Pindar. In the former point of view he falls under our immediate ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... of BIRD DAY and the study that leads to it, is to diffuse a true knowledge of the aesthetic and practical value of birds and to arouse ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [April, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... 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 animal membranes. ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... the forest, may well take the lead, on that account, in a description of those which bear flowers. These are of a greenish yellow, scarcely distinguishable from the leaves, among which the bunches hang down in a peculiar manner. About sunset, if the evening be calm, they diffuse a fragrance around that affects the sense at the distance ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... gifted 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. But in the grand grotesque of farce, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... intellectual activity, morality, and spiritual development. The most entrancing delights and consummate enjoyments are of the emotive order, ideal, abstract, and pure, so inspiring that they overpower the grosser sensual pleasures and diffuse their own sweet chastity and refining influence over ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... of the subject, a Committee of finance would be desirable, whose duty, in the first instance, would be to arrange and pursue the best and most active measures to diffuse a general knowledge of the objects and principles of the association; and to obtain donations and subscriptions, for the purpose ...
— An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1825) • William Hillary
... would diffuse a cheering atmosphere of happiness with which no one in the locality had anything in common. For he was ever a lighthearted, winning, essentially pure innocent of the type which never fails to evoke good-natured smiles and kindly emotions. Indeed, as he roamed the streets, the ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... Cicero's opinion of those eminent men. The former [k] appeared to him cold and languid; the latter [l], disjointed, loose, and negligent. On the other hand, we know what they thought in return: Calvus did not hesitate to say, that Cicero was diffuse luxuriant to a fault, and florid without vigour. Brutus, in express terms, says, he was weakened into length, and wanted sinew. If you ask my opinion, each of them had reason on his side. I shall hereafter examine them separately. My business at present, ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... this difference of manual method in the different style of the respective works. Moore met M'Culloch one evening at Longman's, and they were discussing writers who were in the habit of dictating as they composed. One of the party said the habit of dictating always bred a diffuse style, and M'Culloch supported this view by the example of Adam Smith, whose Wealth of Nations, he said, was very diffuse because it had been dictated, while his Theory, which was not dictated, ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... child, and restore him a helpful man,—to enlist the sympathies of birth, and secure for themselves the eloquence of natural affection,—to overleap the barriers of race and elude the sensitiveness of national pride by putting the doctrines they sought to diffuse into mouths which, untainted by repulsive accents, could enforce new truths by well-known images and familiar illustrations,—was like laying anew the foundations of the Capitol, and consecrating that spirit of worldly ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... spring season these birds move to the northward, and make their appearance along the Atlantic coast of the continent, where they diffuse joy into the hearts of the fishermen—because the latter know, on seeing them, that they may soon expect the large shoals of herring, shad, and other fish, for which they have been anxiously looking out. So great favourites are they with the ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... once represented as the last achievement reserved for commerce and science in their highest maturity, has already been assured. The common interest of trading nations will strengthen the securities of peace, diffuse civilisation among the thousand islands of the Pacific, and facilitate the extension of Christian knowledge in the remotest portions of the earth. England, the parent—no longer the exclusive centre of Anglo-Saxon civilisation—will find ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... be three or four times as much, while in the cold and humid air about the poles it may be as little as one foot. When contributed to the air, the water enters on the state of vapour, in which state it tends to diffuse itself freely through the atmosphere by virtue of the motion which is developed in particles when in the ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... their mother's brother, as with their father. Some hold this tie of blood to be most inviolable and binding, and in receiving of hostages, such pledges are most considered and claimed, as they who at once possess affections the most unalienable, and the most diffuse interest in their family. To every man, however, his own children are heirs and successors: wills they make none: for want of children his next akin inherits; his own brothers, those of his father, or those of his mother. To ancient men, the ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... he wrote, deliberately, the fervent estimate in the Essay of Dramatic Poesy. Johnson saw that Pope had expanded it, and his own experience made him say that the editors and admirers of Shakespeare, in all their emulation of reverence, had not done much more than diffuse and paraphrase this "epitome of excellence." But concurrently on to Johnson's time we can trace the influence of Thomas Rymer, who, in his Short View of Tragedy, had championed the classical drama, and had gone as far in abuse as his greater contemporary had gone in praise. The authority ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... for a Postscript [Footnote: Published in the "Note Book."] to the original paper; since, in a lapse of forty-two years, both the man and his deeds had faded away from the knowledge of the present generation; but still I am sensible that my record is far too diffuse. Feeling this at the very time of writing, I was yet unable to correct it; so little self-control was I able to exercise under the afflicting agitations and the unconquerable impatience ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... bring the muscles into proper action, and thus cause them to be fully developed. They expand and strengthen the chest; they cause a due circulation of the blood, making it to bound merrily through the blood-vessels, and thus to diffuse health and happiness in its course. Another excellent amusement for boys, is the brandishing of clubs. They ought to be made in the form of a constable's staff, but should be much larger and heavier. The manner of handling them is so graphically described by Addison that I cannot do ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... Having, by a long course of scientific observations and experiments, fixed the qualities he desired to give his Southdowns; having brought them to the highest perfection, he now adopted a system which would most widely and cheaply diffuse the race thus cultivated all over the civilized world. He instituted an annual ram-letting, which took place in the month of July. This occasion constituted an important event to the great agricultural world. A few Americans have ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... 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 ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds |
