Thomas Nelson Page made his home in Richmond for thirty years; Amelie Rives was born there and still maintains her residence in Albemarle County, Virginia, while among other writers of the present time connected with the city either by birth or long association are, Henry Sydnor Harrison, Mary Johnston, Ellen Glasgow, Marion Harland, Kate Langley Bosher, James Branch Cabell, Edward Peple, dramatist, J.H. Whitty, biographer of Poe, and Colonel W. Gordon McCabe, soldier, historian, essayist, and local character--a gentleman upon whose shoulders such imported expressions as _litterateur_, _bon viveur_, and _raconteur_ alight as naturally as doves on friendly shoulders. Colonel McCabe is a link between present-day Richmond and the traditions and associations of England. He was the friend of Lord Roberts, he introduced Lord Tennyson to Bull Durham tobacco, and, as is fitting under the circumstances, he speaks and writes of a hotel as "_an_ hotel." Henry Sydnor Harrison did his first writing as book reviewer on the Richmond "Times-Dispatch," of which paper he later became paragrapher and daily poet, and still later editor in chief. It is commonly reported in Richmond that the characters in his novel "Queed," the scenes of which are laid in Richmond, were "drawn from life." I asked Mr. Harrison about this. "When the book appeared," he said, "I was much embarrassed by the disposition of Richmond people--human and natural, I suppose, when you 'know the author'--to identify all the imaginary persons with various local characters. Some characteristics of the political boss in my story were in a degree suggested by a local celebrity; Stewart Bryan is indicated, in passing, as Stewart Byrd; and the bare bones of a historic case, altered at will, were employed in another connection. But I think I am stating the literal truth when I say that no figure in the book is borrowed from life." * * * * * The recent residential development in Richmond has been to the west of the city in the neighborhood of Monument Avenue, a fine double drive, with a parked center, lined with substantial new homes, and having at intervals monuments to southern heroes: Lee, Davis, and J.E.B. Stuart. The parks are on the outskirts of the city and, as in most other cities, it is in these outlying regions that new homes are springing up, thanks in no small degree to the automobile. The Country Club of Virginia is out to the west of the town, in what is known as Westhampton, and is one of the most charming clubs of its kind in the South or, indeed, in the country.