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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition => Topic started by: RobinBClay on Monday 04 February 19 22:26 GMT (UK)
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Harold Soames was my mother's mother's father. I have his last Journal, for 1st January - 25th December, 1918. He was quite an "intellectual", so there are many "classical references", wwhich I might not understand, so if a) you can transcribe his hand, and b) understand his references, I would love to have a readable version, and some explanation of the references ! I have numbered the pages, so please retain the numbering in your transcription.
Here's the first page as an "overview", and I'll add the texts separately.
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... and here it is numbered:-
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... and here's the first text - 001-1 -
This one is easy ;-)
0001-1 Harold Soames Jan 1st, 1918
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... and the second -
I read it as Mrs Rawlins A Consensus
but I think only the "Rawlins" is correct ?
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Here's 001-3 -
I never did French, but I read it as
001-3 Le secret d'ennuyer est de tout dire
And I think perhaps Harold omitted a word from the Voltaire quote:-
"Le secret d'ennuyer est celui de tout dire."
"The secret of being a bore is to tell everything."
... but I may be wrong ! I just asked Google about it... ;-)
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Again, "Google is my friend" ;-)
0001-4
Omar Khayyam's last prayer:- "O God! Truly I have
endeavoured to know Thee according to the
limit of my powers, therefore forgive me,
for indeed the little knowledge of Thee that
I possess is my only means of approach to Thee."
“Persia and its people” by Ella Constance Sykes, d. 1939, London : Methuen & Co., 1910
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The last one on this page,
0001-5 "The curtain was a little lifted that I might see."
From
“The Candle of Vision”, by AE (George William Russell), [1918] "Retrospect", page 7
Thank you, Google !
If the book was published that year, although the quotation is on the first page, Harold must have added it later in the year.
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Page 002
Here's my attempt - modified in accordance with suggestions below - for which, many thanks.
01 S. Reinarch, in "Orpheus" – Sacer interpresque deorum",
02 sums up excellently? (after Tyler, etc.) origins
03 of religions: 1st animism: when folk first
04 feared, & then worshipped departed "spirits" :
05 then imagined all un-controllable nature
06 (the tempest, the volcano) as work of super-humans :
07 How taboo : tokenism - fetishism (making
08 symbols:- dwelling places of gods) – brought
09 in "rites" : (ceremonial: art: ) how in anxiety
10 to placate, or gain profit, they sacrificed
11 first their dearest, later vicariously to their God.
12 And everywhere we see tendency to 2 or 3 Gods :
13Some are ? ? ? then the supreme God,
14 & (to logical minds) some evil God which the Good
15 God required man to help to fight by his efforts:
16 How sacrificing develops into eating
17 the victim: & man partook of his God: X
18 How the prophet was apotheosized: & the
19 God if killed – rose again (of course in spring)
20 How for 1st worship of elements man soared
21 to the sky - Dyaus pita; Zues; JUPITER:
22 & how Gods "metamorphose" ? the
23 disin?ction – e.g. swan –
24 into animals previously "taboo/sacred".
25 How each creed incorporated much from its
26 predecessors, & recognized accretions by its philosophers.
27 Hierogamy for spring fertility; myths invented to explain
28 rites when their primitive significance was obliterated.
29 X at once the benefactor & the victim
S. Reinarch is Salomon Reinarch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salomon_Reinachhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salomon_Reinach
from which:-
"in 1909 he published a general sketch of the history of religions under the title of "Orpheus; histoire générale des religions" (translated into English and published as "Orpheus, a general history of religions")."
I don't know who the "Tyler is, to whom he refers in Line 02. Anybody ?
Thank you, Maiden Stone; I have edited this.
Still a few ? ?
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"How taboo: tokenism - fetishism" ?
"to the sky Xyanspitar?: Zeus: Jupiter"
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Thank you - Yes ! I've edited mine to suit.
That first "God" in Line 21 still eludes me I wondered "Dyans pitar" but that makes no sense. There's an Egyptian (?) god, apparently, now referred to as "Ptah" ?
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Line 21 - I suggest he is referring to 'Dyeus Phter', who was the primary deity in Proto-Indo-European mythology.
Regards
GS
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See middle of 2nd para at https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol_printable/oruol:-
"The Indo-Iranian, Italic, and Hellenic branches of the Indo-European language family display pantheons whose individual actors are not only in close functional correspondence, but also whose nomenclature shows clear etymological correspondence. For example we may clearly identify a Sky god in each tradition, and at the same time we find exacting parallelism in the terminology: the PIE phrase *dyeus pHte:r 'Sky father' has corresponding reflexes in the set phrases of Greek Zeus pate:r, Latin Iu:-(p)piter, and Sanskrit Dyaus pita:. "
So *I* am guessing it is that last ! "Dyaus pita".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyaus
Certainly, he has an "i" there ;-)
Also - it's all phonetic, anyway ;-)
Thank you !
Still need an expert eye on 001-2 on page 1, pretty please ?
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Here's the next page:-
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Which words are you stuck with?
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Since you ask - Alas ! Most of them ! I can make out perhaps two words a line...
01 Spoils of war "taboo" ? they ? the ? ?
02 on enemy: so true ? of divinities(?) lest enemy ? invite them!
03 ? ? ? a common source
04 of inspiration as one sees ????
05 "magic" concepts(?): (jumping to make corn high,)
06 ? ? ? as assistance(?)
07 - (like pins in ? ? to chase:
08 & all the seasons invariably sacred.
09 Man tries to explain the ? ? of
10 nature by those he sees before him, &
11 gives a physical form to ideas suggested.
12 Fables ??? not to oriental(?) imagination
13 so much as the ignorance of primitive man.
14 As Greeks "assisted" God by liberties of
15 ? so ? helped the sun by
16 lighting brands in spring.
17 His ? of ? ? & idle that
18 Jesus crucified not ??? but in character of
19 Barabbas, - the old sacrifice of some criminal.
...
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Line 1 spoils of war "taboo" They bore(?) the maledictions pronounced
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Line 3:
We can assume a common source
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Line 4:
of inspiration as one sees primitive
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Aha - Line 7:
(like pins in waxen images) - to chase
Line 9 - unknown things
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Line 3:
We can assume a common source
I read the 1st word as "One". He wrote "one" in the next line.
One can assume a common source
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Line 6. animals ___ ____
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20 The cock on our steeples survival of day
21 when sacred – (to avert thunderbolts) - like geese.
22 Priests (& profit) ruin of all needs:
23 But when he says "religion" is "a sum of
24 scruples which impede the free ? of our
25 faculties", I venture to think that through
26 all the foolish fears, horrible irritations, &
27 cruel persecutions there still shows
28 in man's anxious quest for
29 some hope of a holy spirit beyond!
30 Though quite natural phenomena there was "spirit" also!!
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Still need help, please, with Line 13
13 Some are ? ? then the supreme God,
and Line 23
23 disin ? ction – e.g. swan –
on Page 002 of this document - see "Page [1]" on this WebPage
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Still need help, please, with Line 13
13 Some are ? ? [/b]then the supreme God,
and Line 23
23 disin ? ction – e.g. swan –
on Page 002 of this document - see "Page [1]" on this WebPage
I now realise that both these lines are from first extract. I was looking at line 13 on 2nd extract but you had already transcribed it. ???
Lines 23-24. It looks to me that words on line 23 were corrections for line below. :-\ I can't decipher the other words.
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Page 002
Here's my attempt
01 S. Reinarch, in "Orpheus" – Sacer interpresque deorum",
02 sums up excellently? (after Tyler, etc.) origins
03 of religions:
I think that perhaps it's not "Tyler", but "Tylor", being this man -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Burnett_Tylor