Reading Notes A, Week 16, Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson

Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson, chapter 4

·         As he brooked over sad memories and still sadder anticipations, - the downfall of the Missions, the loss of their vast estates, and the growing power of the ungodly in the land. The final decision of the United Sates Governent in regard to the Mission-lands had been a terrible blow to him. (269-270)

·         The fairer this beautiful land, the sadder to know it lost to the Church, - alien hands reaping its fullness, establishing new customs, new laws. (270)

·         The plant is tyrant and a nuisance, - the terror of the farmer; it takes riotous possession of a whole field in a season; once in, never out; for one plant this year, a million the next; but it is impossible to wish that the land were freed from it. Its gold is as distinct a value to the eye as the nuggest gold is in the pocket. (271)

·         Her hair was like her Indian mother’s, heavy and black, but her eyes were like her father’s steel-blue. (272)

·         “Ah, Father, I knew you would come by this path, and something told me you were near!” (272)

·         ..have perceived, perhaps, what would have saved him sorrow, it he had known it, that a girl who looked at  a man thus, would be hard to win to look at him as a lover. But being a lover, he could not see this. He saw only enough to perplex and deter him. (274)

·         … Senora had resigned herself to the inevitable; piously praying, however, morning and night, and at odd moments in the day, that the Father might arrive before the Indians did. (276)