[Ads-l] Poem Origin: It was only a sunny smile / And little it cost in the giving

ADSGarson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Tue May 30 18:23:05 UTC 2023


Laurence Horn wrote:
> I suspect 1896 was F. Scott Fitzgerald's birth rather than death year,
> although in the light of his Benjamin Button perhaps it might have somehow
> been both.

You are right, LH. Thanks.
I’ve explored so many quotations attributed posthumously that my
ingrained thought patterns generated the wrong word. I should have
written “Fitzgerald was born in 1896” instead of “Fitzgerald died in
1896”. Hence, the poem was circulating three years before F. Scott
Fitzgerald was born.

Even in the fantasy realm of Benjamin Button, Fitzgerald was not aging
or de-aging in March 1893.
Garson

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