Ever affectionately.
Mrs. Storrar.
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,
Sunday Morning, May 15th, 1864.
My dear Mrs. Storrar,
Our family dinner must come off at Gad's Hill, where I have improvements to exhibit, and where I shall be truly pleased to see you and the doctor again. I have deferred answering your note, while I have been scheming and scheming for a day between this time and our departure. But it is all in vain. My engagements have accumulated, and become such a whirl, that no day is left me. Nothing is left me but to get away. I look forward to my release from this dining life with an inexpressible longing after quiet and my own pursuits. What with public speechifying, private eating and drinking, and perpetual simmering in hot rooms, I have made London too hot to hold me and my work together. Mary and Georgina acknowledge the condition of imbecility to which we have become reduced in reference to your kind reminder. They say, when I stare at them in a forlorn way with your note in my hand: "What can you do!" To which I can only reply, implicating them: "See what you have brought me to!"
With our united kind regard to yourself and Dr. Storrar, I entreat your pity and compassion for an unfortunate wretch whom a too-confiding disposition has brought to this pass. If I had not allowed my "cheeild" to pledge me to all manner of fellow-creatures, I and my digestion might have been in a state of honourable independence this day.
Faithfully and penitently yours.
Mr. Percy Fitzgerald.
Office of "All the Year Round," etc. etc. etc.
Wednesday, July 27th, 1864.
My dear Mr. Fitzgerald,