The Voice of the People by Ellen Glasgow

The Capitol building at Richmond stands on a slight eminence in a grassy square, hiding its gray walls behind a stretch of elms and sycamores, as if it had retreated into historic shadow before the ruthless advance of the spirit of modernism. In the centre of the square, whose brilliant green slopes are intersected by gravelled walks that shine silver in the sunlight, the grave old building remains the one distinctive feature of a city where Iconoclasm has walked with destroying feet.

A few years ago -- so few that it is within the memory of the very young -- the streets leading from the Capitol were the streets of a Southern town -- bordered by hospitable Southern houses set in gardens where old-fashioned flowers bloomed. Now the gardens are gone and the houses are outgrown. Progress has passed, and in its wake there have sprung up obvious structures of red brick with brownstone trimmings. The young trees leading off into avenues of shade soften the harshness of an architecture which would become New York, and which belongs as much to Massachusetts as to Virginia.