"The Kentons" have been a great comfort to me. I have been in my chamber, with a slight attack of illness, for two or three weeks, and I received them one morning. I could not have had kinder or more entertaining visitors, and I was sorry when, after two or three days, I had to say Goodbye to them. They are very "natural" people, "just Western." I am grateful to you for making me acquainted with them.
"Just Western" is the acme of praise. I think I once told you what pleasure it gave me as a compliment. Several years ago at the end of one of our Christmas Eve receptions, a young fellow from the West, taking my hand and bidding me Goodnight, said with great cordiality, "Mr. Norton, I've had a delightful time; it's been just Western"!
"The Kentons" is really, my dear Howells, an admirable study of life, and as it was read to me my chief pleasure in listening was in your sympathetic, creative imagination, your insight, your humour, and all your other gifts, which make your stories, I believe, the most faithful representations of actual life that were ever written.

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