Sentence No. 46 · 12 May 2026
It was almost intolerable to be borne, and yet she bore it with a stoical composure, only by the twitch of a muscle occasionally betraying what was passing within.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne — The Scarlet Letter (1850) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
The near-homophone pair "borne" (endured) and "bore" sets up a deliberate echo: the clause beginning with "and yet" always signals the contrasting resolution. When you see "and yet," the phrase that follows it reverses the idea that came before.
How it appears in Sentle
On Sentle this sentence arrives in 7 pieces, shuffled, with the lines that lead up to it for context. Hester Prynne stands on the scaffold before the assembled townspeople, her infant in her arms and the scarlet letter on her breast. 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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