In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) says that he was brought up by dear bizarre Aunt Maud whose room he and his wife have kept intact:
I was brought up by dear bizarre Aunt Maud,
A poet and a painter with a taste
For realistic objects interlaced
With grotesque growths and images of doom.
She lived to hear the next babe cry. Her room
We've kept intact. Its trivia create
A still life in her style: the paperweight
Of convex glass enclosing a lagoon,
The verse book open at the Index (Moon,
Moonrise, Moor, Moral), the forlorn guitar,
The human skull; and from the local Star
A curio: Red Sox Beat Yanks 5-4
On Chapman's Homer, thumbtacked to the door. (ll. 86-98)
A Room of One’s Own (1929) is an essay by Virginia Woolf. In VN’s novel Lolita (1962) Humbert Humbert mentions a veiled bride’s figure, quite perfect and intacta except for the lack of one arm:
“Okay,” she said. “But you’re not going to trap me. Okay, so we did not have a pop. We just talked and looked at dresses in show windows.”
“Which? That window there for example?”
“Yes, that one there, for example.”
“Oh Lo! Let’s look closer at it.”
It was indeed a pretty sight. A dapper young fellow was vacuum-cleaning a carpet upon which stood two figures that looked as if some blast had just worked havoc with them. One figure was stark naked, wigless and armless. Its comparatively small stature and smirking pose suggested that when clothed it had represented, and would represent when clothed again, a girl-child of Lolita’s size. But in its present state it was sexless. Next to it, stood a much taller veiled bride, quite perfect and intacta except for the lack of one arm. On the floor, at the feet of these damsels, where the man crawled about laboriously with his cleaner, there lay a cluster of three slender arms, and a blond wig. Two of the arms happened to be twisted and seemed to suggest a clasping gesture of horror and supplication. (2.19)
Virgo intacta means “untouched maiden.” In Canto Two Shade speaks of his daughter and quotes the words of his wife Sybil who said that virgins have written some resplendent books:
"But this is prejudice! You should rejoice
That she is innocent. Why overstress
The physical? She wants to look a mess.
Virgins have written some resplendent books.
Lovemaking is not everything. Good looks
Are not that indispensable!" (ll. 320-325)
Pride and Prejudice (1813) is a novel by Jane Austen (who is frequently mentioned by Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own and The Common Reader). One of the deadly sins mentioned by Shade in his conversation with Kinbote is Pride:
“All the seven deadly sins are peccadilloes but without three of them, Pride, Lust, and Sloth poetry might never have been born.” (note to Line 549)
In the preceding stanza (ll. 309-310) Shade mentions the children of Hazel’s age who were cast as elves and fairies on the stage. In his Commentary (note to Line 316) Kinbote wonders if Virginia Whites who occur in woods in May are folklore characters or fairies. Lolita (who at Beardsley should have participated in a stage version of “The Enchanted Hunters”) is abducted by Quilty at Elphinstone.
According to Humbert Humbert, he once overheard Mona Dahl (Lolita’s friend at Beardsley College) say that the only virginal thing about Lolita was her sweater of virgin wool:
The reader knows what importance I attached to having a bevy of page girls, consolation prize nymphets, around my Lolita. For a while, I endeavored to interest my senses in Mona Dahl who was a good deal around, especially during the spring term when Lo and she got so enthusiastic about dramatics. I have often wondered what secrets outrageously treacherous Dolores Haze had imparted to Mona while blurting out to me by urgent and well-paid request various really incredible details concerning an affair that Mona had had with a marine at the seaside. It was characteristic of Lo that she chose for her closest chum that elegant, cold, lascivious, experienced young female whom I once heard (misheard, Lo swore) cheerfully say in the hallway to Lo – who had remarked that her (Lo’s) sweater was of virgin wool: “The only thing about you that is, kiddo…” She had a curiously husky voice, artificially waved dull dark hair, earrings, amber-brown prominent eyes and luscious lips. Lo said teachers had remonstrated with her on her loading herself with so much costume jewelry. Her hands trembled. She was burdened with a 150 I. Q. And I also knew she had a tremendous chocolate-brown mole on the womanish back which I inspected the night Lo and she had worn low-cut pastel-colored, vaporous dresses for a dance at the Butler Academy. (2.9)
“Virgin wool” seems to hint at Virginia Woolf (one can easily imagine VN call his sweater "Virginia Woolf").
virgin wool + fair + beam = Virginia Woolf + amber = wave + grain + fool + brim + I
Humbert's Aunt Sybil who brought him up brings to mind Shade's Aunt Maud and Shade's wife Sybil.