McGuffey's No Joke

I apologize, let me correct myself...McGuffey isn't a joke.

I have officially been humbled by the McGuffey Sixth Eclectic Reader that we use for Jordyn's homeschool literature program. Although she has rarely required my help, I have risen to the challenge and assisted her in finishing the assignment...until today. Today I failed. Consequently, this book sits right here in front of me, reminding me of my downfall.
I have decided to include just a small part of her reading in my blog today. I guess I am hoping that I am not the only one who find this, for lack of better words, 'advanced collegiate'. If so, then I blame the brain bleed! :-)
But, wether or not anyone else easily understands it, I'm going to have to dig my heals in, log onto dictionary.com, and give it another go.


Character of Napoleon Bonaparte

...He knew no motive but interest; acknowledged no criterion but success; he worshiped no God but ambition; and, with an eastern devotion, he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry. Subsidiary to this, there was no creed that he did not profess, there was no opinion that he did not promulgate: in the hope of a dynasty, he upheld the crescent; for the sake of a divorce, he bowed before the cross; the orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted child of the Republic; and, with a parricidial ingratitude, on the ruins both of the throne and the tribune, he reared the throne of his despotism...
(here's some more)
...The whole continent trembled at beholding the audacity of his designs, and the miracle of their execution. Skepticism bowed to the prodigies of his performance; romance assumed the air of history; nor was there aught too incredible for belief, or too fanciful for expectation, when the world saw a subaltern of Corsica waving his imperial flag over her most ancient capitals...

I'd give you more, but I'm plum tuckered out and contemplating restructuring my curriculum to line up with the cretinous homeschool stereotype of teaching only Bible memorization and home economics....hey, that 'cretinous' was a big word! There's hope; mabye Mcguffey's rubbing off on me after all!