---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Alder, Lydia D.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 12
number: 7
published: 1909-05
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Lydia D. Alder, "The Rose," *Improvement Era* 12, no. 7 (May 1909): 519.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1207unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera1207unse
start_page: 519
end_page: 519
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1909-05)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1207unse
  publication_year: 1909
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1909, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# The Rose

<!-- page:519 -->

!         ;

              THE TRAGEDY AND TRIUMPH OF YOUTH.                                   519

propels him comes from his parents, not from his soul; but the feel-
ing     of   want inspires the poor man's son to thrift and                   restless
energy.
        It matters little when or where a child is born.                The accident
of     birth plays little part in  shaping one's career in the great
mortal drama.        Greatness born in a hovel, reared in poverty, finds
recognition in the        world       of fame;      while fortune, cradled in          a
palace, dies in obscurity.             How true Karl G. Maeser, Togo and
Robert Burns exemplify this paradox
        Poverty, with an environment to develop in, stimulates ambi-
tion, as the north wind invigorates and tones the nerves.                     It is to
youth what sunlight is to plant             life,       while the ease of opulence is
comparable to the damp and uncertain light of the cave. Adver-
sity creates thought; luxury stultifies. The one produces stability
and thrift; the other leads to folly and degeneracy. Poverty tends
to make man stand erect; wealth causes him to recline on the bed
of ease.       Proneness weakens; standing erect gives stiength and
vigor.        A Hercules lying prone for a year would become enerv-
ated.        An   invalid,          against gravity, may become
                                struggling
strong. Most Americans who amassed great fortunes of the last
one hundred years, did so in their shirt sleeves; yet so destructive
is   wealth to development that it is said that there are just three
generations       from shirt sleeves to         shirt sleeves.        But the third
generation stepping out into the laboring classes again, are not the
strong, self-reliant nor thinking characters their great grandsires
were.        Hence, wealth to those families has been a hindrance.
Its virtue was shed upon others.

Beaver, Utah.
                                   [to be continued.]

                                      THE ROSE.

                      The rose to all its fragrance gives,
                          Yet for this gift itself is sold
                      In crowded marts its perfume breathes,
                          Its   beauty bartered there for gold.
                                                                     Lydia D. Alder.
Salt   Lake City, Utah.