Some of the greatest among men have spoken and written regarding the material progress of mankind as if every new invention for shortening distance, for economising time or labour, and increasing production were but another step in the direction of eliminating romance from the weary world.  
Especially has this been said of sea traffic. We are asked to believe that in the tiny of Magalhaens, the pestilential of Anson’s squadron, or the cumbrous wooden walls of Trafalgar, there dwelt a romance which is now non-existent at sea—that the introduction of the steam-driven ship has been fatal to a quality which in truth belongs not at all to material things, but holds its splendid court in the minds of men. Do they, these mourners over departed romance, hold, then, that is essential to romance? Is it essential to romantic interest at sea that because of the smallness of the ships, their lack of healthful food, their clumsiness of build and snail-like progress, men should suffer horribly and die ? Truly, if these things are necessary in order that romance shall flourish, we may find them still amongst us both at sea and on land, though[328] happily in ever proportion to an improved order of things.
 
But sober consideration will surely convince us that as far as true romance is concerned the modern ironclad , for instance, need no of her claim to the three-decker of last century or the Great of our infant Navy. The sight of a 15,000-ton battleship cleared for action and silently dividing the ancient sea in her swift rush to meet the , not a man visible anywhere about her, but all grim, adamantine, and awe-inspiring—in what is she less romantic than the Victory under all canvas breaking the line at Trafalgar? As an to the exercise of the imagination, the ironclad certainly claims first place. Like some fire-breathing dragon of ancient she comes, by her own , armed with powers of destruction overtopping all the efforts of ancient story-tellers. Yet to the she is more wonderful, more terror-striking, than to the unknowing observer. For the former pierce with the eye of knowledge her black walls of steel, and see within them hundreds of quiet, self-possessed men calmly by gun-breech, ammunition-hoist, fire-hose, and hospital. Deep under the water-line are scores of fiercely slaves to the gigantic force that actuates the whole mass. Hardly recognisable as human, sealed up in stokeholes under abnormal air pressure, the clang of their weapons never ceases as they feed the long row of glowing white with heat. All around them and beneath[329] them and above, clearly to be discerned through all the clamour of engines and roaring of furnaces, is that sense of invisible forces by the hand of man, yet striving against restraint, a sense that makes the head of the new-comer and beat in sympathy until it seems as if the brain must burst its containing bone.
 
Just these of accumulating energy are the giants being fed . Unhappy the man who can see no romance in the engine-room! Nothing , soul-stirring, in the race of weariless , no storm-song in their magnificent voices as they dash round the at ninety revolutions per minute. Standing amid these modern genii, to which those of “The Thousand and One Nights” are but weaklings, the sight, the senses are held captive, fascinated by so splendid a of the combination of skill and strength. And when the gazer turns away, there are the men; the grimy, , sweat-stained men. , patient, cat-like. Ready at the first hint, either from the Titans themselves or from the soaring bridge away up yonder in the night, to manipulate lever, throttle-valve, and as swiftly, , and certainly as the great surgeon handles his tools in contact with the silent, living form under his hands.
 
What a lesson on faith is here. Faith in the workmanship of the complicated monsters they control, faith in one another to do the right thing at the right moment when a mistake would mean annihilation, faith in the watcher above who is guiding the whole enormous mass amidst dangers seen and unseen. This, too, is no blind faith, no credulity. It is born of knowledge, and the consequences of its being misplaced must be constantly in min............