Mythology, fraught with the fire of imagination, kindles the present from the past. […] Fearing lest a conflagration might set Heaven itself on fire, he proceeded to drown the world. […] Vulcan (Hephæstus), son of Jupiter and Juno, was the god of fire, especially of terrestrial fire, — volcanic eruption, incendiary flame, the glow of the forge or the hearth. […] Whenever the fire did die, it was rekindled from the rays of the sun. […] Phaëton beheld the world on fire, and felt the heat intolerable.