Sentence No. 109 · 14 July 2026
There is a loquacity that tells nothing, which was Bathsheba's; and there is a silence which says much: that was Gabriel's
Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy — Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
The semicolon here splits the sentence into two mirrored halves, each pairing a trait ('loquacity that tells nothing' / 'silence which says much') with its owner. Spot that parallel structure and the two names anchor the ends of each half.
How it appears in Sentle
On Sentle this sentence arrives in 6 pieces, shuffled, with the lines that lead up to it for context. A devoted shepherd watches his mistress ride away with a rival. Putting it back in the author’s order is the puzzle — and the order is rarely arbitrary, which is what the note above is about.
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