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Literary notes about pervasive (AI summary)

In literature, “pervasive” is often deployed to convey an all-encompassing quality that quietly permeates a work’s atmosphere or a character’s inner life. Its use ranges from describing a subtle spirit of kindness that infuses a composition [1] to marking fundamental traits of human progress and emotion, as seen in reflections on nature and memory [2, 3]. The term vividly captures the sensation of something creeping into every corner of a scene—whether it is the gentle aroma in a room [4] or the spreading light over a landscape [5]—thus highlighting how underlying influences or moods can be both delicate and inescapable. Authors thus employ “pervasive” to evoke a sense of continuity and omnipresence in the themes they explore.
  1. The pervasive spirit of the piece is kindly.
    — from Shadows of the Stage by William Winter
  2. Intent, though it looks away from existence and the actual, is the most natural and pervasive of things.
    — from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana
  3. Whatever any man said or did or made, he would be alive to its æsthetic quality, and beauty would be a pervasive ingredient in happiness.
    — from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana
  4. There was a gentle shiver of egg shell, a little whirring sound that buzzed, and then, upon the air of the room, a subtle, pervasive odor.
    — from Simeon Tetlow's Shadow by Jennette Lee
  5. It seemed to hold the moonlight in suspension, rendering it more pervasive than in clear air.
    — from Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy

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