--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Montaigne, Grace Wharton collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 29 number: 6 published: 1926-04 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Montaigne, Grace Wharton, “The Woman on the Rock,” *Improvement Era* 29, no. 6 (April 1926): 581–585." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2906unse 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: improvementera2906unse start_page: 581 end_page: 585 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1926-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2906unse publication_year: 1926 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 1926, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Woman on the Rock THE WOMAN ON THE ROCK An Impression Received in Zion National Park By Mrs. Grace Wharton Montaigne The aesthetic pleasure of a place of beauty is enriched when, added to the beauty by which it is endowed by Nature, is that other beauty of a life lesson taught in its setting. THE TEMPLE OF SINIWAVA, ZION NATIONAL PARK I am indebted to the Woman on the Rock for this added touch. * * * I motored into Zion National Park one sunny Summer afternoon, on one of the many excursions I have taken to that entrancing spot, and knowing the time of day to get a certain light effect in a photo I sought, promptly at that hour I was busily engaged in setting up my camera and composing the picture. In approaching the spot selected, I had merely noticed in a hasty glance from the rear that a person was sitting on a rock near to where I must set up my instrument. The symphony of form, the harmony of colors, the blend of twig and branch with leaf and grassy sward, pierced by the nearby jutting rocks of foreground, and the middle distance of the canyon's wall, flanked on the west by the rear view of Angel's Landing, led the eye naturally to that mountain of majesty which the distance empurpled, so fittingly designated The Great 582 IMPROVEMENT ERA White Throne." Masses of fleecy clouds were drifting over the expanse of delicate azure which canopied the whole, adding to the charm of its attractiveness. Two massive tree trunks framed the view, with leaves dropping from above — this was the scene I sought to record on the photographic plate. Ever as I worked an impression stole into my consciousness to glance more deliberately at the only other person present. The first glance disclosed a woman sitting on a rock, with an ooze calf, moire silk-lined volume (evidently of Nature verse) in her hand, betokening culture and refinement; her status in the world had been worn long enough to have become an unconscious part of her bearing. And yet, as if what I had observed were imperfectly done, and my monitor were dissatisfied with my endeavor, the mes- sage returned, "Look again, and look well, for you are about to — ." I looked again most deliberately, fixedly, almost rudely, and saw. Before me was the Woman on the Rock, who was then and there in that position about to impart to me her message, her life lesson learned. For at her side I saw a pair of crutches — her left limb was amputated at the hip! But oh, the wondrous calm, the abiding peace, the beautiful serenity that encompassed that woman! Her affliction had dropped away, so perfect was her at-one-ment with her surroundings. She was fully immersed in the currents of the in- finite then flowing through her being, and made whole. The poise of person, the contentment with her lot, the resignation in perfect, abiding, trustful faith in what was to follow, was beautiful to see. The perfect completeness of the Woman on the Rock, despite her af- fliction, showed that she had risen above it; that it was no more than a rent in a garment about to be cast off. All this sank in as I absorbed the message of the Woman on the Rock. Several years before, she, her husband, and their two children, were journeying by rail, when a terrible accident suddenly took her husband away from her before her eyes; she herself received the injury I saw; but, added the Woman on the Rock, with fervent, though solemn, thankfulness. "My boy and girl were miraculously spared to me." Again that wondrous calm, that beautiful peace, that perfect serenity! The note of sadness that was registered in voice and eye as the tragic death was recalled, faded upon mention that her brood was spared to her; then did I see that outward beauty, the beauty of the eye and the senses, evidenced by a pleasing scene in blend of leaf, twig, rock and sky, even though a perfect symphony, was a lesser beauty than the wonderful beauty of motherhood — an afflicted mother rising above her sorrow. Sweet are the uses of adversity when nobility of character is built upon them. The charm of the spot in Zion National Park as viewed from THE WOMAN ON THE ROCK 583 the floor of the Temple of Siniwava was this day enhanced by a greater beauty. A car of expensive make, parked nearby, told me that the other members of her party had gone on ahead, over the toilsome path she could not tread, to view the "Narrows." I knew of a shady little bower just behind the Temple of Siniwava, formed by some wild grape vines intertwined among the tree trunks; and leaving the Woman on the Rock alone with her meditations and her blessings, I crept into the retreat to ponder what I had seen and heard. The beauty of the spot showed God's handiwork as manifest in visible Nature; the beauty of the character of the Woman on the Rock was transcendent, an exquisite beauty surpassing the material; the one appealed to the eye, the other to the mind. Meditating on these thoughts there came to me the prayer which Emerson places in rank next to the Lord's Prayer, that prayer on Beauty which was the outpouring from the soul of Socrates, when he and his companion Phaedrus walked without the gates of the city of Athens, to where the plane trees rose in a clump above the grassy banks, and there, lying on the carpet of verdure beside the little stream, he atoned for a statement he had just uttered by delivering himself of that apotheosis which is the most perfect tribute to Beauty (the transcendent beauty of the soul) ever uttered: "Beloved Pan, Then turning to Phaedrus he asked: and all ye other gods who haunt this place, "Want we anything more. Give me beauty in the inward soul; for that prayer is enough for me?" And may the inward and the outward man To which Phaedrus replied: be at one; Grant that I may reckon the wise "Ask the same of me, to be the wealthy, f°r friends should have And may I have such a quantity of gold all things in common." as none but the temperate may carry." As I reclined there busily intent on these thoughts, through the in- terstices of the bower steathily crept a mother chipmunk, foraging in her mild and harmless way for the young she bore; timid, dainty, not armed to harm, but under need, compelled by the urge that antedates civilization. Through the open doorway I heard the exultant and savage cry of a bird of prey, with quarry newly captured, as a mother kite labored upward to a far-flung aerie, bearing in her talons a squirming and wriggling rodent — food for a different kind of brood from the other mother's, this mother armed to fight and rend and kill. Each mother supporting her brood — the chipmunk after her way, and the kite after hers — and each mother saying in her way of speech, as did the Woman on the Rock, "I am thankful my little brood is saved to me." 584 IMPROVEMENT ERA Just then chatty voices broke my reverie, as a group, headed by a boy and a girl, filed past, intently absorbed in recounting what they had seen. "And Robert," said the girl, "isn't it thrilling to -tell Mother that the 'Narrows' may be spanned from cliff to cliff by three of us with outstretched arms. A gorge cut from solid rock by flowing water;" (and then she added as if in after thought) "what eons that task took!" Aye, children, and for like eons have mothers lived for their broods, your mother, the Woman on the Rock, the two mothers I had just seen foraging, all mothers from the advent of Man in the Scheme of Things down through the period when this gorge was fashioning. That long, and to continue to the last, have broods been reared, by mothers who forgot their afflictions, their anguish, even the tragedy of sudden woe, in cherishing the thought, with hearts overflowing with joy, that, befall what may, their solace was the comfort that left to them those in whom they lived and moved and had their being — the beauty of Motherhood which transcends all beauty, exemplified in the calm, the poise, the serenity, the beauty of character of that mother, the Woman on the Rock, who gave me this message on the floor of the Temple of Siniwava in Zion National Park. '"Tis a place where men grow silent * * * * and devotees kneel in prayer." Delta, Utah Having no Vision, They Perished By O. B. Peterson, former President of the Tahitian Mission "Where there is no vision, the people perish." (Proverbs 29:18.) The truth of this oft-quoted bit of scripture was demonstrated recently, in a most literal sense, during a severe equinoctial storm in the Society Islands. Continuous rain and high winds raged for five days during the fore part of January, 1926, during which time the ocean rose several feet and furiously lashed the island shores'. Several villages were practically wiped out on the islands of Raiatea, Borabora and Moorea, with some loss of life, and the property damage reach- ing many thousands' of dollars. On Tahiti, the main island of the group, business and traffic were paralyzed for the time; and all the principal bridges around that island were washed out. The application of the scripture referred to occurred on Tahiti, at the district of Papara, ^here Nature, in her fantastic performance, caused a landslide from the mountain directly into the bed of the HAVING NO VISION, THEY PERISHED 585 Papara river, forming an effective temporary dam, despite the torrent of water that was then raging. Being without vision, the people there didn't see the death trap that was thereby laid. It didn't occur to them that the receding water of the river, thus suddenly stopped, was gather- ing weight, and force, and power, to the extent that the pile of loose dirt and stones from the mountain side would soon give away to its pressure, releasing a demon of terror that would sweep to the sea Part of the district of Papara Tahiti made barren when the pent-up river freed itself. everything in its path. They sat in their homes, serenely ignorant, apparently, of the impending danger. They had not the vision to see that, perhaps with a little effort, they could have devised a means of releasing the river before its volume and power had become a real menace; or failing in that, they could have removed their families outside the danger zone. But without vision, there is no endeavor. When eventually the inevitable happened, everything in the path of the furious monster of mud and water was taken; many were killed and many injured, several bodies being lost entirely. Suggestions for home ground and lawns. In a circular, called Arrange- ment and Planning of Home Grounds, Emil Hansen, specialist in landscape gardening, Extension Service Utah Agricultural College, makes the following suggestions: "In planning home grounds, preserve an open appearance; arrange flowering shrubs along fence lines and in angles formed by the house foundation; plant shrubs in groups with lower growing varieties in outside rows and the medium and taller varieties in the center and at the back; plant trees to form a background for the shrubs, as well as for breaking the view of out-buildings. Don't plant flowers along the sides of walks and founda- tion of the house. In making lawns, plant early, preferably on land pre- pared the preceding fall; two sowings should be made, the second cross- wise to the first; allow 1 pound of seed mixture to 500 feet of lawn." A copy of the circular will be sent free upon request to the College at Logan, Utah.