Burton Harcourt

“ I have always feared that there exist in the world certain sublimated forces and powers which transcend our ordinary concepts, that in the queer substances of the human soul there exist forces as inexplicable as electricity—that weird goblin of the material world. ”

“ It does not occur to us—we do not allow it to occur to us—that the powers of the human mind may extend far beyond the walks of the individual skull, out and beyond into the exterior world, as intangible and powerful as electricity, as deadly, as effective, as potent for good or evil. ”

“ In the bright sunlight, by day, and even by night, close in touch with the solid realities of our environment we are oblivious to the strange Forces and Powers of the spiritual world, and we dupe ourselves into a firm faith in that which is seen and felt. We conclude that the human mind is a creature close-confined in the solid walls of the skull, circumscribed and imprisoned by bone and flesh ”

“ THE room was large and furnished completely in a Chinaman's style. The light from the braziers was somewhat dim and, as I was accustoming my eyes to the twilight, endeavoring to see the wealth of Oriental furnishings among which Sam Wong passed his leisure hours, I noticed someone standing very still in the far corner. ”

“ I decided at once that this activity on Sam Wong's part boded no good for Ah Foo. And yet I could hardly believe that Sam Wong would really shoot his enemy. There are so many better ways that a Chinaman knows to dispose of an "obstacle."
"Sam Wong," I said at his den that night, "don't make a fool of yourself. The penalty for shooting a man in this country is hanging." ”