Sentence No. 7 · 3 April 2026
We live in the flicker — may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday.
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad — Heart of Darkness (1899) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
The dash after "flicker" signals a pivot: everything before it is statement, everything after is wish (a subjunctive prayer beginning with "may"). When you see a dash phrase, it separates two grammatically distinct moves — declaration, then invocation.
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 sailor on the Thames meditates on London itself as a place that was once one of the dark places of the earth. 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.