Both Uses of
diffuse
in
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- But the nightshade of his friend's listlessness seemed to be diffusing in the air around him a tenuous and deadly exhalation and He found himself glancing from one casual word to another on his right or left in stolid wonder that they had been so silently emptied of instantaneous sense until every mean shop legend bound his mind like the words of a spell and his soul shrivelled up sighing with age as he walked on in a lane among heaps of dead language.†
Chpt 5
- The air of wealth and repose diffused about them seemed to comfort their neediness.†
Chpt 5 *
Definition:
-
(diffuse) to spread; or to soften or calm
or:
to be spread out (not concentrated) -- sometimes implying a lack of organization