“Keats and Chapman (in the old days) spent several
months in the county Wicklow prospecting for ochre deposits. That was before
the days of (your) modern devices for geological divination. With Keats and
Chapman it was literally a question of smelling the stuff out….In a field of
turnips near Avoca Keats suddenly got the pungent effluvium of a vast ochre
mine and lay for hours face down in the muck delightedly permeating his
nostrils with the perfume of hidden wealth. No less lucky was Chapman. He had
nosed away in the direction of Newtonmountkennedy and came racing back shouting
that he too had found a mine. He implored Keats to come and confirm his nasal
diagnosis. Keats agreed. He accompanied Chapman to the site and lay down in the
dirt to do his sniffing.
'Great mines stink alike,' he said.”—Brian O’Nolan,
a.k.a. Flann O’Brien (1911-1966), writing as “Myles na Gopaleen,” in The Best of Myles (Myles na Gopaleen)
(1999)
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