"Quaint" is word painting.
"On the south side of this square rises the dignified Cloth Hall."
There is nothing dignified about a shattered, burned, tottering old
building. Why will he use these literary words?
"With a lately restored belfry."
It seems as if this writer couldn't help saying the wrong thing. A
Zouave gave us a piece of bronze from the big bell. It wasn't restored
at all. It was on the ground, broken.
"The church has a modern timber roof."
There he goes again--the exact opposite of what even a child could see
were the facts. And yet in his methodical, earnest way, he has tried to
get these things right. That church, for instance, has no roof at all.
It has a few pillars standing. It looks like a skeleton. I have a good
photograph of it, which the reader can see on page 69. If Baedeker would
stand under that "modern timber roof" in a rainstorm, he wouldn't think
so much of it.
"The Hotel de Ville contains a small collection of paintings."
I don't like to keep picking on what he says, but this sentence is
irritating. There aren't any paintings there, because things are
scattered. You can see torn bits strewed around on the floor of the
place, but nothing like a collection.
I could go on like that, and take him up on a lot more details. But it
sounds as if I were criticising. And I don't mean it that way, because I
believe the man is doing his best.
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