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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: You are too far removed from me, and besides, you stand too firmly
on your own legs to become any one's disciple. I can assure you
that I never attributed any malice to you, never suspected you of
any literary envy. I have often thought, if you will excuse the
expression, that you were wanting in common sense, but never in
goodness. You are too penetrating not to know that if either of us
has cause to envy the other, it is certainly not you that has cause
to envy me.
The following year he wrote a letter to my father which, it
seems to me, is a key to the understanding of Turgénieff's
attitude toward him:
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