Fitzgerald was an eccentric person who, though rich and on friendly terms with some of the most distinguished men of his time, was always out of harmony with his environment.

He felt himself called on to marry, very unhappily, a woman whom he had never been in love with and with whom he had nothing in common.

All his affections were for his male friends.

In early life he was devoted to his friend W.K.
Browne, whom he glorified in _Euphranor_.

"To him Browne was at once Jonathan, Gamaliel, Apollo,--the friend, the master, the God,--there was scarcely a limit to his devotion and admiration."[93] On Browne's premature death Fitzgerald's heart was empty.