unknown genius

the author of the most ineptly ornate, overembellished and flowery prose

novel Irene Iddesleigh, "authoress" Amanda McKittrick Ros’

... How in a trivial period this lonely spot, he thought, should prove the beacon of never-dying bliss, when once furnished with the most precious treasure on earth—a virtuous woman! Ah! the very thought of his embosomed and anticipated alliance made him nervously happy; and believing a bright and noble future lay in store for the lonely owner of Dunfern Estate, he resolved to indulge nature in a few hours of calm repose.

If you’re wondering what he resolved to indulge nature in a few hours of calm repose means, it means he went to bed.

..."Is it true, O Death," I cried in my agony? "that you have wrested from me my mother, Lady Gifford of Columba Castle, and left me here, a unit figuring on the great blackboard of the past, the shaky surface of the present and fickle field of the future to track my life-steps, with gross indifference to her wished-for wish ?" . . . Blind she lay to the presence of her son, who charged her death-gun with the powder of accelerated wrath.

...She tried hard to keep herself a stranger to her poor old father's slight income by the use of the finest production of steel, whose blunt edge eyed the reely covering with marked greed, and offered its sharp dart to faultless fabrics of flaxen fineness.

—is Mrs Ros’ way of saying Delina earned some money doing needlework.