Sentence No. 60 · 26 May 2026
It was not difficult to flatter Dr. Proudie or Sir Nicholas Fitzwhiggin, but very difficult to flatter Mr. Towers without letting the flattery declare itself.
Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers
Anthony Trollope — Barchester Towers (1857) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
Notice the contrast between "It was not difficult to flatter Dr. Proudie" and "but very difficult to flatter Mr. Towers": the sentence pivots there, so the phrase carrying "but" belongs in the middle, never at the start. The repeated word "flatter" on each side of the pivot confirms the parallel structure.
How it appears in Sentle
On Sentle this sentence arrives in 7 pieces, shuffled, with the lines that lead up to it for context. A scheming clergyman weighs how best to flatter a powerful newspaperman. 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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