Item 21 - Letter from Amos Maudslay to Richard Monckton Milnes

2 ff.

Menagerie Cottage, Nostell. - Mr [Edward?] Whately offered him the schoolmastership for which Milnes supplied a testimonial; was very kindly received in Ireland but discovered that half the salary must come from private tuition and rents are high as Bray has become a fashionable bathing place; has decided not to accept post but must support family; conscious of Miss [Esther?] Winn's generosity but feels degraded by present circumstances; can Milnes advise him about writing for magazines; lacks self-esteem. 'Throughout my whole life I have been held face downwards in the mud so tightly that I am afraid of losing all resistive energy, and regarding the mud as my natural element. Still reading Hugh Miller's Vestiges. Reform question; proposes extension of franchise based upon tested knowledge of biology, natural theology, and moral issues.