Hello friends! I just thought I'd share something I wrote a long time ago...when my writing style was way too ridiculously flowery! Haha. I'd love your thoughts on how to make it a bit less ridiculous. I'd use those hints to revamp the whole story this excerpt comes from. Thank you for any feedback!

“Dear Eva, you have been dreadfully dull today, I’ve scarce heard a word from you! What is on your mind cousin?”
It was true, Eva had been deep in thought all that day, and it was almost enough to bring about annoyance in the girl’s cousin.
“John, what are your opinions about love?”
John’s raised his eyebrow, an amused look creeping over his face, “Do you really wish to know Eva? You won’t in the least way like what I have to say, and I do think the subject rather pointless.”
“You think love is pointless?”
“I did not say that, I said that the subject of love is pointless. Perhaps conversing about any subject is pointless, but for your sake I will give my opinions. Oh how dull to approach a subject outright! You ought to start with what you believe it is, and I shall correct where you error. Oh don’t look at me as though I’ve insulted you! You asked about the subject, and that in itself is an admittance to ignorance about it.”
Eva sighed and fidgeted a little in the high-backed chair, “I suppose love is the greatest thing in the world. It rules the heart, creates passion and beauty, it is wholly selfless, and it never dies; It is what causes everything good in man, and it fuels every sacrifice man has ever made; I suppose too that love of God is where goodness and grace come from, and love of man is where forgiveness and pity come from.”
“My dear girl, you have painted the picture beautifully, yet completely and utterly wrong in every way. I daresay I’m frightened to touch something that is so pure sacred in your mind. You would be better off staying in the serene dark of unenlightened emotion.”
Eva frowned, clasping her hands and looking nervously at her cousin, “Please John! I must know what your thoughts are, you have never withheld them before!”
John’s lips curved slightly as he looked into the anxious face, “Alright, if you really must know, love is a madness--very simply put, but it is true. Love is a mad obsession, a controlling intensification of every emotion. I think I could rightly say that hatred is the closest relation to love in that it takes over will, thoughts, and even personality; Yes, perhaps hatred is just another branch of love. You see, I do believe love is not, as we think, the same emotion, but rather any extraordinary emotion directed at one person or thing. The love a person has for art or music or literature--that is the addiction of the soul to things beautiful, addiction to the things one can understand and relate to, it is the obsession with the expression and figuring out of one’s own soul. The love the man has for a woman, that is easy to explain, it is merely the lust of the flesh. Oh Eva, I do hate when you look at me as though I were sent from hell to taint you! You asked me to tell you my opinions, and that is what I plan to do. The love a man has for a woman is merely lust. They see her, they feel her, and they love her. They are obsessed with having, and mad because they do not have. Though man’s love is madness the love of a woman is perhaps madder still. She is obsessed with being loved. She finds a man who she thinks would add worth to her if by happy misleadings she could gain his compliments and passion; She will not let her love rest until she gains his affections or, if that is not possible, she is able to convince herself he is a wicked demon that no woman this side of hell could ever love truly except for herself.”
“I never ceased to be surprised at your cynical views! To think, romance does not exist in your mind!”
“Oh, it exists! It is a very widely accepted mislabel given by well-meaning poets. Romance is the mystery of passion. It is again the deceit of the heart. A youthful heart convinces one’s self that all its lusts, desires, and vanities flow from this pure strange thing, ‘romance’. It puts in place a misty curtain of sense and beauty, and assigns fairer names to all man’s natural desires. Yes, I believe in romance.”
“How could you John! What I shall think now when my own romance comes! Yet still, cousin, you have not touched on the subject of the love of God.”
“His love for man or man’s love for Him? One must believe in God before he can believe in the love of God, so I shall not dare to confuse your mind with the expressions of incredulity that would undoubtedly seep through even my most unbiased arguments. I shall jump then right to this love that man seems to have for God. Yes cousin, I did mean to say ‘seems’ for very few actually have any love for him, even in the grossest most generic sense that I have mentioned before. Man’s love for...