in _Between the Devil and the Deep Sea_ which runs:

"What follows is worth consideration. The forward engine had no more
work to do. Its released piston-rod, therefore, drove up fiercely,
with nothing to check it, and started most of the nuts of the
cylinder-cover. It came down again, the full weight of the steam
behind it, and the foot of the disconnected connecting-rod, useless as
the leg of a man with a sprained ankle, flung out to the right and
struck the starboard, or right-hand, cast-iron supporting-column of the
forward engine, cracking it clean through about six inches above the
base, and wedging the upper portion outwards three inches towards the
ship's side. There the connecting-rod jammed. Meantime, the after
engine, being as yet unembarrassed, went on with its work, and in so
doing brought round at its next revolution the crank of the forward
engine, which smote the already jammed connecting-rod, bending it and
therewith the piston-rod cross-head--the big cross-piece that slides up
and down so smoothly."

This is the method of Homer as applied to the shield of Achilles, the
method of Milton in enumerating the superior fiends, the method of
Walter Scott confronted with a mountain pass, the method of the
sonneteer to his mistress' eyebrow. Mr Kipling's enthusiasm for these
broken engines would be intolerable if it were not obviously genuine.
Unless we shut our ears and admit no songs that sing of things as yet
unfamiliar to the poets of blue sky and violets dim as Cytherea's eyes,
we cannot possibly mistake the lyrical ecstasy of the above passage.
When Mr Kipling tells how a released piston-rod drove up fiercely and
started the nuts of the cylinder-cover, it is an incantation. His
machines are more alive than his men and women. It is more important
to know about the cast-iron supporting-column of Mr Kipling's forward
engine than to know that Maisie had long hair and grey eyes, or to know
what happened to any of the people whom it concerned. _.007_, which is
the story of a shining and ambitious young locomotive, is ten times
more vital--it calls for ten times more fellow-feeling--than the heart
affairs of Private Learoyd or the distresses of the Copleigh girls at
Simla. The pain that shoots through .007 when he first becomes
acquainted with a hot-box is a more human and recognisable bit of
consciousness than anything to be shared with the Head of the District
or the Man Who Was. The psychology