---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Wordsworth, William
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 13
number: 1
published: 1909-11
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'William Wordsworth, "Unknown," *Improvement Era* 13, no. 1 (November 1909): 54.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1301unse
  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: improvementera1301unse
start_page: 54
end_page: 54
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1909-11)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1301unse
  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.
---

# Unknown

<!-- page:54 -->

—


54                       IMPROVEMENT ERA.

are a prisoner surrounded by Chinese only.           Some of the horrible
scenes witnessed at home in a moving-picture show come to mind.
                                The guide sees that you are nervous,
                                and ["explains that it is necessary to
                                lock the door, as     it   would be impos-
                                sible    to   show goods, for the place
                                would be packed by the curious crowd.
                                Many days afterwards your imagina-
                                tion carries     you back to Canton, the
                                city with the      greatest population in
                                the     Orient, the city of pawn-shops,
                                and curio shops without end, where
                                imitations and counterfeits of every-
                                thing Chinese,      delude the unsophis-
                                ticated foreigner.         It   is   a city of
                                oriental riches and barbaric splendor,
                                and a city of the greatest wealth and

The Honam Pagoda, China.
                                the direst poverty.         One      is    glad to
                                have been through the narrow, seething
thoroughfares,    the blaze of gold and vermilion, and the glitter
and glow of showy exteriors.          After seeing it all, I felt         like   the
boy who went to the dentist, "it's awful good to be over with."
Canton, China.


                              Unknown.

                                {Selected.)

                 She dwelt among the untrodden ways
                   Besides the springs of Dove;
                 A maid whom there were none to praise
                   And very few to love.
                 A violet by a mossy stone
                   Half-hidden from the eye!
                 Fair as a star, when only one
                   Is shining in the sky.

                 She lived unknown, and few could know
                   When Lucy ceased to be;
                 But she is in her grave, and, oh,
                                          —
                   The difference to me! William Wordsworth.