With a single stroke of his heavy mace, he laid the midnight robber and assassin senseless upon the floor.
How instantly was that humble watchman ennobled in my eyes! How high and important was his use in society! I looked at him from a new standpoint, and saw him in a new relation.
"Commonplace!" said I, on regaining my own room in my own house, panting from the excitement and danger to which I had been subjected.

"Commonplace! Thank God for the commonplace and the useful!" Again I passed into the land of dreams, where I found myself walking in a pleasant way, pondering the theme which had taken such entire possession of my thoughts.

As I moved along, I met the gifted one who had called my work dull and commonplace; that work was a simple picture of human life; drawn for the purpose of inspiring the reader with trust in God and love towards his fellow-man.

He addressed me with the air of one who felt that he was superior, and led off the conversation by a brilliant display of words that half concealed, instead of making clear, his ideas.

Though I perceived this, I was yet affected with admiration.