But when Louis Napoleon applied the doctrine of "thorough" to the greatest citizens of Paris, and shot, imprisoned, or exiled statesmen, philosophers and poets, Madame Pulzsky said to me, the "Republicans thought their leniency a mistake, and if they had power again they would cut everybody's throat who stood in the way of liberty." As usual, thoroughness had begotten ferocity. Carlyle's eminent disciples of thoroughness justified the massacre and torture of the blacks in Jamaica, for which Tennyson, Kingsley, and others defended Governor Eyre. Lord Cardwell, in the House of Commons, admitted in my hearing that there had been "unnecessary executions." "Unnecessary executions" are murders--but in thoroughness unnecessary executions are not counted. Wherever we have heard of pitilessness in military policy, or in speeches in our Parliament, we see exemplifications of the gospel of Thoroughness, which is madness if not limited by justice and forbearance. Conventional thoroughness dwells in extremes. If political economy was thoroughly carried out, there might be great wealth, but no happiness. Enjoyment is waste, since it involves expenditure. The Inquisition, which made religion a name of terror, was but thoroughness in piety. Pope, himself a Catholic, warned us that-- "For virtue's self may too much zeal be had. The worst of madness is a saint run mad." Fanatics forget (they would not be fanatics if they remembered) that in public affairs, true thoroughness is limited by the rights of others. There is no permanent progress without this consideration. The best of eggs will harden if boiled too much. The mariner who takes no account of the rocks, wrecks his ship--which it is not profitable to forget. It is natural that those who crave practical knowledge of the unseen world should look about the universe for some chink, through which they can see what goes on there, and believe they have met with truants who have made disclosures to them. I have no commerce of that kind to relate. It is hard to think that when Jupiter is silent--when the Head of the Gods speaketh not--that He allows angels with traitor tongues to betray to men the mysteries of the world He has Himself concealed. Can it be that He permits wayward ghosts to creep over the boundary of another world and babble His secrets at will? This would imply great lack of discipline at the outposts of paradise. There is great fascination in clandestine communication with the kingdom of the dead. I own that noises of the night, not heard in the day, seem supernatural. The wind sounds like the rush of the disembodied--hinges creak with human emotion--winds moan against window panes like persons in pain. Creatures of the air and earth flit or leap in pursuit of prey, like the shadows of ghosts or the furtive steps of murdered souls. Are they more than "The sounds sent down at night By birds of passage in their flight"?