Pound wrote that one shouldn't trust opinions about writing which had been offered by someone who hadn't himself written anything of note. He said it would be better to read Henry James's prefaces than any number of books about novels by non-novelists. As advice goes, that seems reasonable to me, though, as always, there are exceptions. There was a documentary on TV several years ago about the huge building stones of Machu Picchu which, although no mortar was used to join them, fit together so perfectly that you cannot pass a knife blade between them. They're irregular in size and shape. Some have more than two-dozen corners. An American academic had theorized (in the late 20th century) that such wondrous workmanship was the result of advanced science among the Incas. He claimed they were technologically so advanced that they would have been able to fabricate huge polished dishes made of gold -- about as big as those large satellite dishes that folks living in the boondocks put in their yards to get TV -- and the dishes could focus a beam of sunlight onto the stone and thereby cut it into the desired shape. A stonemason on site mumbled something about the academic being a $&$#^ idiot; the focused beam was barely strong enough to cut through a popsicle stick. He reached down and picked up a small rock from the ground. There were many such rocks strewn all over the ground.The rock was about the size of his shoe. He said, Just look at the strike marks on the big stones; they used rocks like the one I'm holding in my hand to shape them. Tim Romano