I completely agree! I've read Fiona Macleod*'s The Mountain Lovers several times now (not for fun, sadly - my phd is on Macleod and I'm doing a conference paper on TML this month) and it strikes me every time how soft and slow the writing is, and how something more modern would have tried to do more (too much) with the space.

I will let you know! I'm looking for some books to read atm but I don't know /what/ I'm looking for yet to ask more specifically! (although, to that end, have you ever read any Robert Murray Gilchrist? I know a lot about his relationship with William Sharp and next to nothing about his actual work except that he went a bit gothic? I might have that wrong. Anyway...I'll stop chattering now!

*aka William Sharp, if you didn't know already. A complicated how's your father at best.