He also perused the current item in a tremendously long and tedious controversy between three emigre factions. It had started by Faction A's accusing Faction B of inertia and illustrating it by the proverb. 'He wishes to climb the fir tree but is afraid to scrape his shins.' This had provoked an acid Letter to the Editor from' An Old Optimist', entitled 'Fir Trees and Inertia' and beginning: 'There is an old American saying "He who lives in a glass house should not try to kill two birds with one stone".' In the present issue, there was a two-thousand-word feuilleton contributed by a representative of Faction C and headed 'On Fir Trees, Glass Houses, and Optimism', and Pnin read this with great interest and sympathy.