这章是作者对斯特里克兰性格的剖析，以及作者对自己作品为何是事实的陈述而不是小说的杜撰！印象深刻的是作者对男女对待爱情的描述，句句真切，似乎揭开了神秘的面纱，让女人窥见了男人的本性！
1: Here lies the unreality of fiction. For in men, as a rule, love is but an episode which takes its place among the other affairs of the day, and the emphasis laid on it in novels gives it an importance which is untrue to life. There are few men to whom it is the most important thing in the world, and they are not very interesting ones; even women, with whom the subject is of paramount interest, have a contempt for them. They are flattered and excited by them, but have an uneasy feeling that they are poor creatures. But even during the brief intervals in which they are in love, men do other things which distract their mind;the trades by which they earn their living engage their attention; they are absorbed in sport; they can interest themselves in art. For the most part, they keep their various activities in various compartments, and they can pursue one to the temporary exclusion of the other. They have a faculty of concentration on that which occupies them at the moment, and it irks them if one encroaches on the other. As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.
这正是小说的失真之处。因为普遍而言，爱情只是男人生活中的插曲，是和日常生活中的其他事务并存的；但小说往往会对愛情大加渲染，使它具备了与现实不符的重要性。确实有少数男人把爱情当成人世间的头等大事，可惜这些人都不是非常有趣，就连对爱情最感兴趣的女人也会瞧不起他们。女人会被他们哄得飘飘欲仙、兴奋不已，可是也难免感到浑身不舒服，觉得他们真是下贱的动物。甚至在短暂的热恋期里，男人也会心有旁骛。他们会全神贯注地去完成赖以谋生的工作，他们会旁若无人去参加强身健体的运动，他们会兴致勃勃地去研究各种各样的艺术。对大多数男人来说，他们会把这些不同的活动安排在不同的时间段，他们在从事某种活动时，往往会把其他的抛诸脑后。他们会把所有注意力集中在
当前正在做的事情上，如果一种活动干扰了另外一种，他们会感到很恼火。就谈恋爱这回事而言，男人和女人的区别在于，女人能够整天卿卿我我，但男人却只能偶尔为之。
2: He was indifferent to money, he cared nothing about fame.You cannot praise him because he resisted the temptation to make any of those compromises with the world which most of us yield to. He had no such temptation. It never entered his head that compromise was possible.
他视钱财如粪土。他视名声为浮云。可是你不能称赞他抵御了这些诱惑，因为我们大多数人固然不惜委曲从俗荀求富贵，但这些对他来讲根本不是诱惑。他的头脑不知妥协忍让为何物。
3: But who can fathom the subtleties of the human heart?
但谁又能摸清难测的人心呢？
fathom: 理解；彻底了解；弄清真相
subtlety: 微妙之处
