I challenge members to give a better definition of this word
than that given below. I read a short novel perhaps a hundred years old, with Sturm und Drang plot and orations,
absurd protestations of noble motives and passions.

"Mawkish" was one of the descriptions that occurred to me.
The dictionary definition seems inadequate. And the second
definition seems attribute the reaction to the wrong party.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Definition: \Mawk"ish\, a. [Orig., maggoty. See {Mawk}.]
1. Apt to cause satiety or loathing; nauseous; disgusting.

So sweetly mawkish', and so smoothly dull. --Pope.

2. Easily disgusted; squeamish; sentimentally fastidious.
--J. H. Newman.