than carved it, for there was a blazing furnace behind Fuji. And this
furnace was belching fire. It was not crimson. It was not gold. It was
not red. It was fire.

It was furnace fire. It was a Pittsburgh blast-furnace ten thousand
times as big as all of Pittsburgh itself, belching fire and flames of
sparks. These sparks were flung against the evening skies. Some folks, I
fancy, on that memorable night called them stars; but I know better.
They were giant sparks flung from that blast-furnace which was booming
and roaring behind Fuji. I could not hear it roar; that is true; but I
could feel it roar. I could not hear it because even so great a sound as
that furnace must have been making will not travel sixty miles, even
though it was as still up there in the old theological tower as a
country cemetery by winter down in Rhode Island when the snow covers the
graves.

Then suddenly a flare of fire shot up directly behind the cone of Fuji,
flaming into the coal-bank of clouds above the mountain, as if the old
shaggy seer had forgotten his age and was dreaming of youth again when
the earth was young and he was a volcano.

Above that streak of fire and mingled with it, black smoke seemed to
pour until it formed a flat cloud of black smoke directly above the
cone, and spread out like a fan across the sky to give the giant artist
further ebony to shape his mountain monument.

Then Fuji suddenly belched its volcano of color and lava; of rose and
gold, amber, salmon, primrose, sapphire, marigold; and in a stream these
poured over Fuji's sides and down along the ridge-line of the lesser
hills until they too were covered with a layer of molten glory a mile
thick.

The clouds above Fuji forgot to be black. In fact, their mood of
sullenness departed as by magic, and a smile swept over their massive
mood of moroseness, and glory swept the skies. It was as if that furnace
behind Fuji had suddenly burst, throwing its molten fire over the hills,
the mountains, the sky, the world.

And "mine eyes" had "seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." And that
was enough for any man for one lifetime.

* * * * *

Then there is beautiful Boroboedoer down in Java. It is a Physical
Flash-Light that looms with its huge and mysterious historical
architectural beauty like some remnant of the age when the gods of
Greece roamed the earth. A sunrise from its pinnacled height I have
already described, but the temple