The last Journal of Harold Soames, 1855-1918

[RobinBClay]

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.

[RobinBClay]

... and here it is numbered:-

[RobinBClay]

... and here's the first text - 001-1 -

This one is easy  ;-)

0001-1     Harold Soames     Jan 1st, 1918

[RobinBClay]

... and the second -

I read it as  Mrs Rawlins  A Consensus

but I think only the "Rawlins" is correct ?

[RobinBClay]

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...  ;-)

[RobinBClay]

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

[RobinBClay]

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.

[RobinBClay]

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 ? ?

[Maiden Stone]

"How taboo: tokenism - fetishism" ?
 
"to the sky Xyanspitar?: Zeus: Jupiter"