Sentence No. 17 · 13 April 2026
Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Charles Dickens — Great Expectations (1861) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
The phrase "so strong, that" is a classic *result* construction: "so [adjective], that [consequence]." Whenever you see the "so" phrase, scan for a "that" phrase later in the sentence — it always introduces the outcome, never comes first.
How it appears in Sentle
On Sentle this sentence arrives in 5 pieces, shuffled, with the lines that lead up to it for context. Pip visits Miss Havisham for the first time and encounters Estella, who treats him with open contempt. 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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