Sentence No. 2 · 29 March 2026
How despicably have I acted — I, who have always prided myself on my discernment!
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen — Pride and Prejudice (1813) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
The sentence opens with an exclamatory inversion: "How despicably have I acted" places the adverb first and flips subject and verb. Whenever you see "How + adverb/adjective" at the start of a phrase, it signals this inverted exclamatory structure — the subject-verb pair follows, never leads.
How it appears in Sentle
On Sentle this sentence arrives in 5 pieces, shuffled, with the lines that lead up to it for context. A young woman has just received an unwanted proposal. Alone, she turns her sharpest judgment on herself. 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.
A new sentence from a great book, every day.
Play today’s sentenceFree, no account. Or play this one — it will give the answer away.