olors 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.

"Making sketches in war time is very di