carried not one ounce of ballast; he was utterly unpractised in the world;
and at the age of twenty-six, knew just about as well how to steer his
course in it, as a romping, unsuspicious girl of thirteen: So that upon
his first setting out, the brisk gale of his spirits, as you will imagine,
ran him foul ten times in a day of somebody's tackling; and as the grave
and more slow-paced were oftenest in his way,--you may likewise imagine,
'twas with such he had generally the ill luck to get the most entangled.
For aught I know there might be some mixture of unlucky wit at the bottom
of such Fracas:--For, to speak the truth, Yorick had an invincible dislike
and opposition in his nature to gravity;--not to gravity as such;--for
where gravity was wanted, he would be the most grave or serious of mortal
men for days and weeks together;--but he was an enemy to the affectation of
it, and declared open war against it, only as it appeared a cloak for
ignorance, or for folly: and then, whenever it fell in his way, however
sheltered and protected, he seldom gave it much quarter.

Sometimes, in his wild way of talking, he would say, that Gravity was an
errant scoundrel, and he would add,--of the most dangerous kind too,--
because a sly one; and that he verily believed, more honest, well-meaning
people were bubbled out of their goods and money by it in one twelve-month,
than by pocket-picking and shop-lifting in seven. In the naked temper
which a merry heart discovered, he would say there was no danger,--but to
itself:--whereas the very essence of gravity was design, and consequently
deceit;--'twas a taught trick to gain credit of the world for more sense
and knowledge than a man was worth; and that, with all its pretensions,--it
was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit had long ago defined
it,--viz. 'A mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the
mind;'--which definition of gravity, Yorick, with great imprudence, would
say, deserved to be wrote in letters of gold.