Felipe was a
clearer-sighted lover now than he had been in his earlier youth. He
knew that into the world where Ramona really lived he did not so
much as enter; yet her every act, word, look, was full of loving
thoughtfulness of and for him, loving happiness in his
companionship. And while this was so, all Felipe's unrest could not
make him unhappy.
There were other causes entering into this unrest besides his
yearning desire to win Ramona for his wife. Year by year the
conditions of life in California were growing more distasteful to
him. The methods, aims, standards of the fast incoming Americans
were to him odious. Their boasted successes, the crowding of
colonies, schemes of settlement and development,-- all were
disagreeable and irritating. The passion for money and reckless
spending of it, the great fortunes made in one hour, thrown away in
another, savored to Felipe's mind more of brigandage and
gambling than of the occupations of gentlemen. He loathed them.
Life under the new government grew more and more intolerable to
him; both his hereditary instincts and prejudices, and his
temperament, revolted.
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