EDNote: Here's one that slipped through the cracks ten days ago. Sorry!
~SB
-------- Original Message --------
In March 2006 D. Barton Johnson called our attention to Max Beerbohm's
1911 novel _Zuneika Dobson_. Don speculated that VN might have read the
book and that there was a connection to "The Potato Elf." It seems
likely
to me there is also a connection to Pale Fire, though it's a small one.
Beerbohm:
For there is nothing in England to be matched with what lurks in the
vapours of these meadows, and in the shadows of these spires--that
mysterious, inenubilable spirit, spirit of Oxford. Oxford!
MR: I don't currently have access to the OED, but when I check Google
Books, this is the only other use of "inenubilable" I can find in a
novel
or poem prior to Pale Fire.
Beerbohm:
On a small table stood a great casket of malachite, initialled in like
fashion. On another small table stood Zuleika's library. Both books
were
in covers of dull gold. On the back of one cover BRADSHAW, in beryls,
was
encrusted; on the back of the other, A.B.C. GUIDE, in amethysts,
beryls,
chrysoprases, and garnets. And Zuleika's great cheval-glass stood ready
to
reflect her.
MR: Could the Bradshaw refer to the author of Goddess of Atvatabar?
Also
we have here chrysoprase, which shows up in Kinbote's description of
Wordsmith's campus. And then, of course, the cheval glass.
Matt Roth