You are right, and it occurred to me as I was writing it. But ‘I was not a . . .’ could have been completed by a million complements. Actually, it runs: ‘I believe that one day a reappraiser will come and declare that, far from having been a frivolous firebird . . .’ The Reappraiser will be reversing a putative previously held reputation for being a firebird. Penny.

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Second thoughts: how about ‘far from having been a frivolous firebird, I was a deadly serious one – a rigid moralist firebird’? P.

 

From:	STADLEN@aol.com
To:	NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU

I hope it is not too pedantic to point out that a firebird is what he is saying he was NOT. Of course, one could invoke Freud's essay on negation, but I will not...

Anthony Stadlen