And so the enterprise is begun. This study will concern the origins, and not the history, of the English imagination. It will not deal proportionately, therefore, with every period and every author or every artist. Beginnings will be granted more importance than endings. I will mention other literatures only in passing, and for this I offer no excuse. There will no doubt be many errors and omissions, to which I plead guilty in advance. I am fully aware that certain qualities defined here as peculiarly English are not uniquely so. Russian melancholy, and the Persian miniature, are cases in point. Yet such qualities flourish within an English context in singular and particular ways;

于是企业开始了。这项研究将关注英国想象的起源，而不是历史。因此，它不会按比例处理每一个时期、每一位作家或每一位艺术家。开始比结束更重要。我只是顺便提及其他文献，对此我不提供任何借口。毫无疑问，会有许多错误和遗漏，对此我事先表示认罪。我完全明白，在这里被定义为特别英语的某些品质并不是独一无二的。俄罗斯的忧郁，和波斯的缩影，就是很好的例子。然而，这些品质在英语语境中以独特的方式蓬勃发展；