"I went on to France. I sketched Notre Dame, over which they exploded shells a month or so later. I did some work in the beautiful St. Etienne. I sauntered down into South Normandy and was stopping for a little color work at the Inn of William the Conqueror before going on to Rheims." These water colors of French farms, French inns, and French gardens are glimpses caught at the very eleventh hour before France put on a totally different aspect. "The war broke out. There at the quiet little French inn everything suddenly changed color. It was quick, it was quiet. There was a complete change in the snap of a finger. All the chauffeurs and the porters and the waiters--men who had been there for years and with whom we who visit there Summer after Summer have grown familiar--suddenly stopped work, gave up their jobs, were turned into soldiers. One hardly recognized them. "We were all stunned. I realized that I could not go on to Rheims, that I probably should not get down into Italy. I scarcely realized at first what that meant. I could not conceive, none of us could conceive," Mr. Smith exploded violently, "that any one, under any necessity whatsoever, should lay hands on the Rheims Cathedral. It's too monstrous! The world will never forgive it, never! "The world is divided, I tell you! It is not a Double Alliance and a Triple Entente; it is not a Germany and a Russia and a United States and an Italy and an England. That is not the division of the world just now. There are two sides, and only two sides. There is barbarism on the one hand, civilization on the other; there is brutality and there is humanity. And humanity is going to win, but the sacrifices are awful--awful!" "How about the feeling in France, Mr. Smith?" "I can't tell you how overwhelmingly pathetic it is--the sight of these brave Frenchmen. Every one has remarked it. Once and for all the tradition that the French are an excitable, emotional people with no grip on their passions and no rein on their impulses--that fiction is dead for all time. "I saw that whole first act of France's drama. I saw the French people stand still on that first day and take breath. Then I saw France set to work. She was unprepared, but she was ready in spirit. There was no excitement, there were no demonstrations. The men climbed into their trains without any exhibitions of patriotism, without any outbursts. There were many women crying quietly, with children huddled about their skirts. "The spirit of England is different, but there is the same lack of excitement. I chartered a motor bus when the war broke out and got to Paris, and then went back to London, where I sketched for a month, saw my friends, and talked war.