Sentence No. 112 · 17 July 2026
The tiled floor was thick with dust, and a remarkable array of miscellaneous objects was shrouded in the same grey covering.
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine
H.G. Wells — The Time Machine (1895) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
The comma after 'dust' joins two parallel clauses with 'and,' each built around its own subject and passive verb ('was thick,' 'was shrouded'). Spotting that twin structure tells you where the sentence pivots from floor to objects.
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 traveller in a strange future explores the ruins of a vast museum. 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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