In another place * VN quotes the Desmoulins line more closely:
John Shade (PF) declares that he cannot forgive his students for: "not having read the required book. Having read it like an idiot. Looking in it for symbols; example: The author uses the striking image green leaves because green is the symbol of happiness and frustration".
( quoted by Brian Boyd in his annotations to Ada,1999)
The notion of symbol itself has always been abhorrent to me, and I never tireImpossible to say if this was an intentional quote, or just something VN had read and retained. If we ever find Cora Day and the color green in closer proximity, we may know.
of retelling how I once failed a student-- the dupe, alas, of an earlier teacher-- for writing that Jane Austen describes leaves as "green" because Fanny is hopeful, and "green" is the color of hope.
*Volume 17, Number 5 · October 7, 1971
Review
Rowe's Symbols
By Vladimir Nabokov
Nabokov's Deceptive World
by William Woodin Rowe
New York University Press, 193 pp., $8.00