| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: is a great hall, where the scholars dine. The funds for the
support of this college are very considerable; the masters live in
a very good figure, and their maintenance is sufficient to support
it. They have all separate dwellings in the house, and all
possible conveniences appointed them.
The scholars have exhibitions at a certain time of continuance
here, if they please to study in the new college at Oxford, built
by the same noble benefactor, of which I shall speak in its order.
The clergy here live at large, and very handsomely, in the Close
belonging to the cathedral; where, besides the bishop's palace
mentioned above, are very good houses, and very handsomely built,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: between the infinitely great and the infinitely small, but he would have
equally denied the claim of either to true existence. Of that positive
infinity, or infinite reality, which we attribute to God, he had no
conception.
The Greek conception of the infinite would be more truly described, in our
way of speaking, as the indefinite. To us, the notion of infinity is
subsequent rather than prior to the finite, expressing not absolute vacancy
or negation, but only the removal of limit or restraint, which we suppose
to exist not before but after we have already set bounds to thought and
matter, and divided them after their kinds. From different points of view,
either the finite or infinite may be looked upon respectively both as
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: by overlooking. At first she thought of keeping the letter; but on
second thoughts she burned it.
"Madame had just received such a fine love-letter; and she read it,"
said Caroline to the housemaid.
"I should never have thought that of madame," replied the other, quite
surprised.
That evening Madame de Listomere went to a party at the Marquis de
Beauseant's, where Rastignac would probably betake himself. It was
Saturday. The Marquis de Beauseant was in some way a connection of
Monsieur de Rastignac, and the young man was not likely to miss
coming. By two in the morning Madame de Listomere, who had gone there
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