This is all that ever staggered my faith in regard to _Yorick's_ extraction, who, by what I can remember of him, and by all the accounts I could ever get of him, seemed not to have had one single drop of _Danish_ blood in his whole crasis; in nine hundred years, it might possibly have all run out: ----I will not philosophize one moment with you about it; for happen how it would, the fact was this: --That instead of that cold phlegm and exact regularity of sense and humours, you would have looked for, in one so extracted; --he was, on the contrary, as mercurial and sublimated a composition, --as heteroclite a creature in all his declensions; --with as much life and whim, and _gait de cur_ about him, as the kindliest climate could have engendered and put together. With all this sail, poor _Yorick_ 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.

This is all that shook my faith in regard to Yorick's ancestry - for he seemed not to have one single drop of phlegmatic blood in his body; in nine hundred years, it might have all run out. Instead of that cold phlegm and sense you would have looked for in one of Danish extraction, he was, on the contrary, mercurial, with as much life and whim and gaiety as the kindliest climate could have engendered.
With all this sail, poor Yorick carried not one ounce of ballast; he was utterly unpractised in the world; and, at the age of twenty-six, knew as much about it as a romping, unsuspicious girl of thirteen. So the brisk gale of his spirits, as you will imagine, ran him foul of somebody ten times in a day; and as the grave and more slow-paced were oftenest in his way, 'twas with such he had generally the ill luck to get the most entangled.
To speak the truth, Yorick had an invincible dislike and opposition to gravity - not to gravity as such, for where gravity was needed, he would be the most grave of men - but he hated the affectation of it, and declared open war against it when it was a cloak for ignorance or folly.
