“One day that autumn, a staff sergeant who had written some short stories knocked on the door of Hemingway’s hotel room. He had never met Hemingway and didn’t how he’d be received. But he was ushered in and given a drink. Hemingway had seen one of his published stories, asked to see another, liked it, and wrote him a letter saying so. Afterwards, the young man told a friend how thrilled he’d been. Hemingway was a good guy, he said. Modest about his own eminence, and surprising soft, despite the hardness of his celebrated style. Jerome David Salinger would never forget Hemingway’s kindness and generosity.”

– from “Hemingway,” a film by Ken Burns, episode 3, The Blank Page