- Project Runeberg -  Sónya Kovalévsky. Her recollections of childhood with a biography of Anna Carlotta Leffler /
209

(1895) [MARC] Author: Sofja Kovalevskaja, Anne Charlotte Leffler, Ellen Key
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A BIOGRAPHY

209

If she criticized unfavorably anything I had written,
I rewrote it until she was pleased. This was the
commencement of our collaboration. She used to say that
I should never have written " Ideal "Women " if I had
not done so before her arrival in Sweden. This work,
and my novel, " At War with Society," were the only
books of mine that she disliked. She disapproved of
Bertha’s struggle to try and secure the remnant of
her mother’s fortune, for she considered that when a
woman has once given herself to a man, she must not
for a moment hesitate to sacrifice her fortune to the
very last farthing if he needs it. This criticism was
so like her; she was always so subjective in her
judgments of literary produce. If the thought and feeling
in a book were in accordance with her own sympathies,
she was prone to value it highly, even if it was only
mediocre. If, on the other hand, it contained any
opinion in which she did not share, she would not
admit that the book had any merit at all.

In spite of this prejudice, she was as broad in her
views as the most highly gifted individuals of her age.
Of the prejudices and conventionalities of ordinary
mortals she had not a trace. Her comprehensive
genius and her high culture raised her far above the
boundaries with which tradition limits most minds.

Limitations she found, but only in the strong
individuality of her nature, the pronounced sympathies
and antipathies of which withstood both logic and
discussion.

On this first occasion we did not see much of each
other, and our acquaintance did not deepen into
friendship, for within a month of her arrival I went abroad
for some time. Before that, however, she had learned
enough Swedish to read my books. Immediately after
her arrival she began to take lessons in that language,
u

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