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I am currently transcribing a letter from about 1890 Excerpt of relevant part of the letterfrom the Norwegian Professor of Philosophy Marcus Jacob Monrad to an unnamed Italian Professor. However, I have problems with deciphering three words, below marked with XXX. Any suggestions would be most welcome:

Ich
habe seitdem Nichts von Ihm
erfahrt bis vor Kurzen, da ich
einen
— leider vom Manicomio [i.e. the asylum] in Rom
XXX — Brief von ihm erhielt.
Er spricht darin von literarischen
und wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten,
besonders von mehreren jour-
nalistischen Unternehmungen;
klagt übrigens über seine XXX,
und bittet mich nicht undeutlich
um einiger Hülfe. Nun
kann man eigentlich nicht
wissen, was daran wahr — oder
XXX [eine???] Phantasie eines Geistes-
kranken ist, und so möchte ich
Sie fragen, ob Sie ihn noch kennen
und wissen, was aus ihm gewor-
den ist, oder etwas von seiner
jetzigen Lage.

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  • The first word is "datiert". The third could be "alleine" or "alles".
    – Paul Frost
    Dec 1, 2021 at 0:37
  • 2
    I’m voting to close this question because it will not be useful for other users. It's a service request. Dec 1, 2021 at 1:48
  • 2
    @user unknown: Please see german.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1656/…
    – Helge
    Dec 1, 2021 at 16:57
  • 1
    Coorection: The first word is "datierten".
    – Paul Frost
    Dec 2, 2021 at 12:22
  • @Paul Frost: Yes, thank you. Your initial input helped me to identify "datierten". Any suggestions re the second problem?
    – Helge
    Dec 2, 2021 at 14:56

1 Answer 1

5

The words (in context) are:

  1. "einen vom Manicomio in Rom datierten Brief" (possibly written in the old orthography "datirten")

  2. "klagt übrigens über seine Noth, und bittet [...] um einige Hülfe.": he laments his difficult situation and begs for help. For help deciphering this, compare the "N" in the word "Nun"; the "l"-looking letter is actually an uncrossed "t" – this omission was very common in Kurrent writing - just as in the word "bittet" in the next line. (Note that it's "einige" not "einiger", though Monrad seems to have written "einiges" at first.)

  3. Paleographically and semantically speaking, this could be either allein or alles: "was daran wahr — oder allein Phantasie... ist".

Credit to Paul Frost for deciphering no. 1 and 3.

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