Sentence No. 63 · 29 May 2026
When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun.
Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy — Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
The long sentence chains three comma-joined clauses — "the corners of his mouth spread," "his eyes were reduced to chinks," "diverging wrinkles appeared round them" — before closing with the participial phrase "extending upon his countenance like the rays." A phrase beginning with a present participle almost always trails at the end, modifying what just came before it, rather than opening the sentence.
How it appears in Sentle
On Sentle this sentence arrives in 8 pieces, shuffled, with the lines that lead up to it for context. The narrator introduces Gabriel Oak with an affectionate portrait of his face. 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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