Edward FitzGerald. Maurice Bowra.
Iran. Journal of the Iran Society 1 (1963), p. 1-12

In the nineteenth century, England, despite its reputation for ruthless conventionality, was a happy home for eccentrics, for men who with an almost unconscious confidence pursued their private whims and maintained a curious innocence from the world around them. To this select and agreeable company belonged Edward FitzGerald. He was not, strictly speaking, English, but Anglo-Irish, coming from a family long settled in Ireland but regarding itself as an outpost of English manners and superiority, and confirmed in its belief by an ample income and several large houses. Though FitzGerald lived to be 74, his life was undramatic, and such dramas as befell him he took with a philosophical calm. Even when his father lost his money trying to find coal on his Manchester estate and was declared bankrupt, FitzGerald’s existence was not troubled.