How long can a sentence be? The Gunning Fog Index gives this bit of Tolstoy…

…a rating of 17.73 – the number representing the number of years’ education a person would typically need to understand a given piece of text – yet in truth, this would be perfectly clear for anyone with even a basic grasp of written English. Showing yet again, if there was ever any doubt, that if the writing’s good enough, length really isn’t an issue.