Sentence No. 137 · 11 August 2026
It is always painful to part from people whom one has known for a very brief space of time.
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
Oscar Wilde — The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
Notice how the relative pronoun 'whom' hooks directly onto 'people' — relative clauses must sit flush against the noun they modify, so any fragment starting with 'whom' can only follow the noun it describes.
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 young woman reflects on the pain of brief acquaintance. 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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