Inconveniences

From G.K. Chesterton's essay "On Running After One's Hat" (1908):

"Most of the inconveniences that make men swear or women cry are really sentimental or imaginative inconveniences -- things altogether of the mind. 

For instance, we often hear grown-up people complaining of having to hang about a railway station and wait for a train.

Did you ever hear a small boy complain of having to hang around a railway station and wait for a train?  No.

For to him to be inside a railway station is to be inside a cavern of wonder and a palace of poetical pleasures.  Because to him the red light and the green light on the signal are like a new sun and a new moon.  Because to him when the wooden arm of the signal falls down suddenly, it is as if a great king had thrown down his staff as a signal and started a shrieking tournament of trains.

I myself am of little boys' habit in this matter.  They also serve who only stand and wait for the 2:15; their meditations may be full of rich and fruitful things.

An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered."

-- reprinted in the Wall Street Journal (October 2014)