Sentence No. 54 · 20 May 2026
in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain — The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
Notice the frame "in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to": the opening infinitive phrase states the goal, and the main clause delivers the method. "In order to" always launches a subordinate phrase — never the main clause.
How it appears in Sentle
On Sentle this sentence arrives in 7 pieces, shuffled, with the lines that lead up to it for context. Tom Sawyer has been given the punishment of whitewashing a fence. He sets about turning it into an opportunity. 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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