One Joanne Guide introduces you to another Joanne Guide, or a history, you can't help yourself. The Joanne Guides are so united a family, that as soon as any member of it establishes itself on a friendly footing with you, your hand is always in your pocket while you are travelling on that Guide Joanne's account. An insidious tribe: and they make themselves absolutely essential to the traveller's existence and comfort.
Each Guide Joanne tells you about his own country all that is requisite for you to know, and just so much more as inspires you with a thirst for further information. Say for example you see an old Château. Let us say Le Château de Jean. You want to know everything about it. Good. You inquire of the Guide Joanne which professes to show you all over France, and which does it, mind you, in what would be an exhaustive style if it was not written with such an evident eye to the bookselling business. For example suppose you are looking for information about the well-known ancient Château de Jean, here is a specimen of what Joanne would say on the subject:—
"Sur la rive g. (V. ci-dessous B.) restes d'un château, style ogival, (mon. hist.,) bâti par le célèbre Jean Bienconnu-aux-enfants (V. mon. hist, xe et xiie s.), beau portail, jolis détails d'architecture (mon. hist.) et en particulier l'appartement dit de la Donzelle toute désespéré (pour le visiter, s'addresser au gardien, pourboire), qui a conservé une grande partie de sa décoration originale et de sa peinture (mon. hist. xie). Le donjon renfermait une oubliette profonde nommée DU RAT DÉVORANT, qui autrefois servait de grenier au malt (V. mon. hist.). Ascension des Obélisques sur la terrasse (splendide panorama) et belles promenades autour de la petite chapelle dite DU PRÊTRE CHAUVE. (V. vi. L'Itinéraire du Pays-de-Bonnes, Guide Diamant.)"
AN END OF THE SUMMER.
Jupiter Pluvius,
Sluicer, full-spout,
Downpour diluvious,
Pumped on the Drought.