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230
SÖNYA KOVALÉVSKY
to work without having close to her some one who
breathed the same mental atmosphere as herself.
Work in itself—the absolute search after scientific
truth—did not satisfy her. She longed to be
understood, met half-way, admired and encouraged at eveiy
step she took. As each new idea sprang up in her
brain, she longed to convey it to some one else, to
enrich with it another human being. It was not only
humanity in the abstract, but some definite human
being, that she required—some one who in return
would share with her a creation of his own.
Mathematician as she was, abstractions were not for
her, for she was intensely personal in all her thoughts
and judgments.
Mittag Lefiler often told her that her love of and
desire for sympathy was a feminine weakness. Men
of great genius had never been dependent in this way
on others. But she asserted the contrary, enumerating
a number of instances in which men had found their
best inspiration in their love for a woman. Most of
these were poets, and among scientists it was more
difficult to prove her statement; but Sönya was never
short of arguments to demonstrate her propositions.
When she had no real facts to go upon, she would,
with great facility, construct suppositions. It is true
that she succeeded in quoting several instances going
to prove that a feeling of great isolation had been the
cause of intense suffering to all profound minds. She
pointed out how great was the curse of feeling deeply;
how hurtful the loneliness of isolation to man, whose
highest happiness it is to merge his own in another’s
welfare.
I remember that the spring of 1886 was a specially
trying one for Sönya. The awakening of nature—the
restlessness and growth which she has depicted so
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