'If you like it try the "Castle of Otranto" by Horace Walpole. That is the best stilted romance style I know. "Well may the blood" says an expiring viscount to a peasant youth who has fallen in love with a countess and been recognised by a friar as his son, the friar thereupon proving himself a duke, and the detection of his son arising from a markt on the son's neck, which was being bared for execution, - "well may the blood which has so lately traced itself to its source boil over in the veins". (The boy had shown signs of annoyance.) I never saw anything like that before.The killing and stabbing and the wonderment produced as to why all the characters stay about the old castle, (most of them have no business there), when at least three quarters are searching for the blood of the other three quarters for monetary reasonsor for none! There are three discoveries, I think of long lost children and no end of supernaturalism; all produces a gorgeous effect.'