Many friends have helped me in writing this book. Some are dead and so illustrious that I scarcely dare name them, yet no one can read or write without being perpetually in the debt of Defoe, Sir Thomas Browne, Sterne, Sir Walter Scott, Lord Macaulay, Emily Bronte, De Quincey, and Walter Pater,— to name the first that come to mind. Others are alive, and though perhaps as illustrious in their own way, are less formidable for that very reason. I am specially1 indebted to Mr C.P. Sanger, without whose knowledge of the law of real property this book could never have been written. Mr Sydney-Turner’s wide and peculiar2 erudition has saved me, I hope, some lamentable3 blunders. I have had the advantage — how great I alone can estimate — of Mr Arthur Waley’s knowledge of Chinese. Madame Lopokova (Mrs J.M. Keynes) has been at hand to correct my Russian. To the unrivalled sympathy and imagination of Mr Roger Fry I owe whatever understanding of the art of painting I may possess. I have, I hope, profited in another department by the singularly penetrating4, if severe, criticism of my nephew Mr Julian Bell. Miss M.K. Snowdon’s indefatigable5 researches in the archives of Harrogate and Cheltenham were none the less arduous6 for being vain. Other friends have helped me in ways too various to specify7. I must content myself with naming Mr Angus Davidson; Mrs Cartwright; Miss Janet Case; Lord Berners (whose knowledge of Elizabethan music has proved invaluable); Mr Francis Birrell; my brother, Dr Adrian Stephen; Mr F.L. Lucas; Mr and Mrs Desmond Maccarthy; that most inspiriting of critics, my brother-in-law, Mr Clive Bell; Mr G.H. Rylands; Lady Colefax; Miss Nellie Boxall; Mr J.M. Keynes; Mr Hugh Walpole; Miss Violet Dickinson; the Hon. Edward Sackville West; Mr and Mrs St. John Hutchinson; Mr Duncan Grant; Mr and Mrs Stephen Tomlin; Mr and Lady Ottoline Morrell; my mother-in-law, Mrs Sydney Woolf; Mr Osbert Sitwell; Madame Jacques Raverat; Colonel Cory Bell; Miss Valerie Taylor; Mr J.T. Sheppard; Mr and Mrs T.S. Eliot; Miss Ethel Sands; Miss Nan Hudson; my nephew Mr Quentin Bell (an old and valued collaborator8 in fiction); Mr Raymond Mortimer; Lady Gerald Wellesley; Mr Lytton Strachey; the Viscountess Cecil; Miss Hope Mirrlees; Mr E.M. Forster; the Hon. Harold Nicolson; and my sister, Vanessa Bell — but the list threatens to grow too long and is already far too distinguished9. For while it rouses in me memories of the pleasantest kind it will inevitably10 wake expectations in the reader which the book itself can only disappoint. Therefore I will conclude by thanking the officials of the British Museum and Record Office for their wonted courtesy; my niece Miss Angelica Bell, for a service which none but she could have rendered; and my husband for the patience with which he has invariably helped my researches and for the profound historical knowledge to which these pages owe whatever degree of accuracy they may attain11. Finally, I would thank, had I not lost his name and address, a gentleman in America, who has generously and gratuitously12 corrected the punctuation13, the botany, the entomology, the geography, and the chronology of previous works of mine and will, I hope, not spare his services on the present occasion.
1 specially | |
adv.特定地;特殊地;明确地 | |
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2 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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3 lamentable | |
adj.令人惋惜的,悔恨的 | |
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4 penetrating | |
adj.(声音)响亮的,尖锐的adj.(气味)刺激的adj.(思想)敏锐的,有洞察力的 | |
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5 indefatigable | |
adj.不知疲倦的,不屈不挠的 | |
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6 arduous | |
adj.艰苦的,费力的,陡峭的 | |
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7 specify | |
vt.指定,详细说明 | |
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8 collaborator | |
n.合作者,协作者 | |
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9 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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10 inevitably | |
adv.不可避免地;必然发生地 | |
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11 attain | |
vt.达到,获得,完成 | |
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12 gratuitously | |
平白 | |
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13 punctuation | |
n.标点符号,标点法 | |
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