How would you characterize this rhetoric in this passage?

Such was the young clergyman's condition, and so

imminent the prospect that his dawning light would be

extinguished, all untimely, when Roger Chillingworth

made his advent to the town. His first entry on the

scene, few people could tell whence, dropping down,

as it were, out of the sky, or starting from the nether

earth, had an aspect of mystery, which was easily

heightened to the miraculous. He was now known to

be a man of skill; it was observed that he gathered

herbs, and the blossoms of wild-flowers, and dug up

roots and plucked off twigs from the forest-trees, like

one acquainted with hidden virtues in what was value-less

to common eyes. He was heard to speak of Sir

Kenelm Digby, and other famous men, -- whose scien-

tific attainments were esteemed hardly less than super-

natural, -- as having been his correspondents or asso-

ciates. Why, with such rank in the learned world, had

he come hither? What could he, whose sphere was in

great cities, be seeking in the wilderness? In answer

to this query, a rumor gained ground, -- and, however

absurd, was entertained by some very sensible people,

-- that Heaven had wrought an absolute miracle, by

transporting an eminent Doctor of Physic, from a Ger-

man university, bodily through the air, and setting him

down at the door of Mr. Dimmesdale's study! Individuals

of wiser faith, indeed, who knew that Heaven pro-

motes its purposes without aiming at the stage-effect of

what is called miraculous interposition, were inclined to

see a providential hand in Roger Chillingworth's so opportune arrival.

This idea was countenanced by the strong interest

which the physician ever manifested in the young

clergyman; he attached himself to him as a parishioner,

and sought to win a friendly regard and confidence

from his naturally reserved sensibility. He

expressed great alarm at his pastor's state of health, but

was anxious to attempt the cure, and, if early

undertaken, seemed not despondent of a favorable result.

The elders, the deacons, the motherly dames, and the

young and fair maidens, of Mr. Dimmesdale's flock,

were alike importunate that he should make trial of the

physician's frankly offered skill. Mr. Dimmesdale gently

repelled their entreaties.

How would you characterize this rhetoric in this passage?
elevated, formal, detached
Reply:I'd characterize it as too long to waste time on.
Reply:It reads like something back in the time of the Bronte sisters, when you never used one adjective if three would do.

In style, the rhetoric is pedantic. And boring.

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