In a message dated 07/24/2000 3:18:29 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes: << Is not any part of your response extraneous to the discussion of Pound? If the answer to that question is "no," then I shall beg your pardon, and strive to follow your example of mind singularly focused on the pertinent issues. If the answer is "yes, occasionally I have strayed from the topic", then I say, let us all be forgiving of each other, and permit one another any number of digressions. After all, no serious harm could result from any response, however "extraneous" it might seem to another person. >> now this is funny, because the inference that one draws from the above is that you're only occasionally long-winded or extraneous, when it fact these dubious qualities seem to me (and I'm not the only person who has made this observation) to be intrinsic to your method... jb...