Curiously enough," he said, without waiting for any opening question from The Times reporter—Mr. Smith often interviews himself—"curiously enough, I was on my way to Rheims to make a sketch of the Cathedral when the war broke out. I had started out to make a series of sketches of the great European cathedrals. Not etchings, but charcoal sketches.
"Let me say here, too, that cathedrals for the most part ought not to be etched. You lose too many shadows, though you gain in line; but in the etching you have to cross-hatch so heavily with ink that the result is just ink, and not shadow at all. Charcoal gives you depth and transparency. I was eager to do a series of the cathedrals, as I had done a series for the Dickens and Thackeray books, and had planned to give my, entire Summer to it.

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