The Romance of Zion Chapel by Richard le Gallienne (1898)

I'm torn by this book, as I am in general by Gallienne's style. His contradiction is built around appearing quite erudite and rich on the page and yet incurring an overwhelming feeling of thinness and insubstantiality in the memory. This novel ostensibly covers the irruption into a depressed neighbourhood of a charismatic young preacher at its local chapel, his falling in love with a sweet and humble local girl, and his being subsequently overcome romantically by a visiting reciter. He and the reciter realise that their love is of the deepest kind, but decide, through their mutual love and respect for the local girl, that their ways will part. Theophilus the preacher and Isabel the reciter embrace in the chapel before her last performance as a last goodbye, but unfortunately they are seen by the girl, Jenny. Isabel leaves, Theophilus is none the wiser, but Jenny begins to decline. Eventually she tells him what she saw. The last third of the book is concerned with death. Jenny's first, with all its implications of guilt. Then Theophilus himself starts to droop. In his last hours he calls out to his great love, Isabel. She rushes to him, and we hear for the first time of their pact of dying together, which duly comes to pass with a mutual suicide. All this is finely written, and its classical tones are heightened discursively and given Aesthetic period richness. So why does Gallienne feel so thin in retrospect? The answer is in fullness of prose, rather than rounding out of character. No wonder, then, that his reputation is far stronger as an essayist.