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SÖNYA KOYALÉYSKY
INTRODUCTION
IMMEDIATELY on receiving the news of S6nya
Kovalévsky’s unexpected and sudden death, I felt
that it was a duty incumbent upon me to continue, in
one form or another, the reminiscences of her early
life which had been published in Swedish under the
title of " The Sisters Raevsky."
There were many reasons which made me consider
this my special duty; but the chief one was the fact
that Sonya had always entertained a feeling that she
would die young, and that I should outlive her; and
over and over again she made me promise to write
her biography.
Introspective and self-analysing as she was to an
extraordinary degree, she was accustomed to dissect
minutely her own actions, thoughts, and feelings;
both for her own benefit and, during the three or four
years in which we were together almost daily, for mine
also. She always tried to classify her ever-changing
moods and disposition according to a given
psychological system. This habit of self-criticism was so
strong that she frequently recognized the truth. But
however keen, and at times unmerciful, her
self-analysis might be, there was blent with it the natural impulse
to self-idealization. She saw herself as she wished to
be seen; hence the picture she drew of herself was in
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