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NOTE
301
the most stupid woman is wiser than the cleverest man, that
realm is love. When I was six years old, and fell in love,—
my first love,— with a student who visited at our house, and
loved him with a strong, silent love which I confided to no
one except to a stone lion which adorned my grandfather’s
garden, I understood more about the meaning of this matter
than these young men do."
A. C. Leffler listened in smiling silence to the flood of
eloquence, which rang out for a good while longer, until,
at last, it descended with full force upon her, upon " sly
Anna Carlotta," who had thrown down the glove, and then
beaten a retreat, leaving Sophia to extricate herself from
the scrape. The fact was, that Anna Carlotta, like many
others, disliked to interrupt Sophia when the latter got
excited j there was so much depth of thought, brilliant wit,
humor, lyrism, imagery, and vividness in her speech, that
every one preferred to listen to her. A. C. Leffler, with the
good nature which constituted one of her most attractive
qualities, often took Sophia’s jests in earnest, which not
infrequently provoked fresh sallies of wit and laughter.
Sophia took great delight in profiting by the
psychological perspicacity which was peculiar to her, to delineate
the character of a given person — to imagine for herself
his distant future on the foundation of some gesture of his,
some intonation of his voice, and so forth. None of Sophia’s
brilliant qualities aroused such a degree of wonder and
admiration in A. C. Leffler as this. In order to explain
■what we mean by this quality of Sophia, we will cite the
following fact. One day Sophia Kovalévsky chanced to be
traveling in the same carriage with a woman who is now
doing much work in the interest of her native land. Mme.
Kovalévsky entered into conversation with her, and began
to inquire her plans. When the woman stated them, Sophia
said: " You will certainly be successful. There comes a
decisive moment in the life of every person, when his whole
future fate depends upon whether he chooses the path on
which he should go, or not. He who lets that moment
slip ruins his whole future life. You belong to the class of
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