James, G. P. R. The Gentleman of the Old School. London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1839.

Three-volume recovery text read as part of a class on Romantic and Victorian Novels. In short: John is an arrogant man on his way with his uncle, Mr. Forrest, and family to see Lady Mallory, cousin of Mr. F, and he runs into Ralph, and old schoolmate, just before a hailstorm. Ralph is the long-lost lover of Edith, John's cousin, Mr. F's daughter. Mr. F wants Edith to marry John. John is in love with Lucy, a woman in town, whose father was the schoolmaster when Ralph and John were boys. Lady Mallory is in love with Ralph. Edith still loves Ralph, until he kills John in self-defense. But John's not the cousin of Edith, he's Edith's brother. !!! But Edith isn't the daughter of Mr. F, she's the daughter of Sir Andrew Stalbrooke, the Gentleman of the Old School, who is the uncle of Ralph. So: Edith and Ralph are cousins, and thus, according to rules of the 18th-century, are primed for marriage.

Say what you will about the contemporary equivalents of all this (D. Steele? V.C. Andrews?) these books are fun. Which isn't to say the writing's so great. Viz. the following:

"...And then, when love has touched my heart with its magic fire, and I have hid, with stony firmness, the light that scorched me, am I to find, at the very time—when the ties which bound me are broken and I am free to love and to be happy—am I to find that here too the blight and mildew of my fate withers the flower in the blossom, that he is cold and chilly towards her whose heart is all fire and emotion, giving his heart's bright treasure to an idle girl that cannot, cannot love as I can love?"

is the metaphor grossly mixed or just complex and extended?

My vote? Mixed.