But all this isby the way.

I was veryyoung when I wrote my first book. By a lucky chance it excited attention, andvarious persons sought my acquaintance.

It is notwithout melancholy that I wander among my recollections of the world of lettersin London when first, bashful but eager, I was introduced to it. It is longsince I frequented it, and if the novels that describe its presentsingularities are accurate much in it is now changed. The venue is different.Chelsea and Bloomsbury have taken the place of Hampstead, Notting Hill Gate,and High Street, Kensington. Then it was a distinction to be under forty, butnow to be more than twenty-five is absurd. I think in those days we were alittle shy of our emotions, and the fear of ridicule tempered the more obviousforms of pretentiousness. I do not believe that there was in that genteelBohemia an intensive culture of chastity, but I do not remember so crude apromiscuity as seems to be practised in the present day. We did not think ithypocritical to draw over our vagaries the curtain of a decent silence. Thespade was not invariably called a bloody shovel. Woman had not yet altogethercome into her own.

但是这一切都是题外之言。

我写第一本书的时候非常年轻，但由于偶然的因缘这本书引起了人们的注意，不少人想要同我结识。

我刚刚被引进伦敦文学界的时候，心情又是热切又是羞涩；现在回忆起当时的种种情况，不无凄凉之感。很久我没有到伦敦去了，如果现在出版的小说里面的描写是真，伦敦一定发生了很大变化了。文人聚会的地点已经改变了。柴尔西和布鲁姆斯伯里取代了汉普斯台德、诺廷山门、高街和肯星顿的地位。当时年纪不到四十岁就被看作了不起的人物，如今过了二十五岁就会让人觉得滑稽可笑了。我想在过去的日子里我们都羞于使自己的感情外露，因为怕人嘲笑，所以都约束着自己不给人以傲慢自大的印象。我并不认为当时风雅放浪的诗人作家执身如何端肃，但我却不记得那时候文艺界有今天这么多风流韵事。我们对自己的一些荒诞不经的行为遮上一层保持体面的缄默，并不认为这是虚伪。我们讲话讲究含蓄，并不总是口无遮拦，说什么都直言不讳。女性们那时也还没有完全取得绝对自主的地位。