las leyes humanas no son el resultado de una elección libre original, sino el de la pura necesidad de poner límites a los perjudiciales efectos de aq… - Laurence Sterne

I have a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very nonsensically, and I will not balk my fancy. — Accordingly I set off thus:

Tis a long journey, Sir, replied the master of the inn — — unless a man has great business. — — Tut! tut! said the stranger, I have been at the promontory of Noses; and have got me one of the goodliest, thank Heaven, that ever fell to a single man’s lot.

Whilst the stranger was giving this odd account of himself, the master of the inn and his wife kept both their eyes fixed full upon the stranger’s nose — — By saint Radagunda, said the inn-keeper’s wife to herself, there is more of it than in any dozen of the largest noses put together in all Strasburg! is it not, said she, whispering her husband in his ear, is it not a noble nose?

’Tis an imposture, my dear,' said the master of the inn — — ’tis a false nose.'
’Tis a true nose,' said his wife.
’Tis made of fir-tree,' said he, I smell the turpentine. — —
'There’s a pimple on it,' said she.
’Tis a dead nose,' replied the inn-keeper.
’Tis a live nose, if I am alive myself,' said the inn-keeper’s wife.

The stranger had not got half a league on his way towards Frankfort before were just ringing to call the Strasburgers to their devotions, and shut up the duties of the day in prayer: — no soul in all Strasburg heard ’em — the city was like a swarm of bees — — men, women, and children, (the Compline bells tinkling all the time) flying here and there — in at one door, out at another — — this way and that way — long ways and cross ways — up one street, down another street — — in at this alley, out of that — — did you see it? did you see it? did you see it? O! did you see it? — — who saw it? who did see it? for mercy’s sake, who saw it?

Alack o’day! I was at vespers! — I was washing, I was starching, I was scouring, I was quilting — — God help me! I never saw it — — I never touch’d it! — — would I had been a centinel, a bandy-legg’d drummer, a trumpeter, a trumpeter’s wife, was the general cry and lamentation in every street and corner of Strasburg.

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.