When doing some research for a small project I am involved in, I came across this wonderful passage on the value of the arts in the Manchester Guardian, written in the context of a campaign to purchase Mrs Gaskell’s house for the city after her daughter, Meta, had died in 1913. It is quite long, but speaks for itself:

Projects of this kind cannot be forced. If a city does not care about such things they must be left to cities that do. But it is a pity. It means a real loss, the “scrapping” of a rare and irreplaceable commodity. Almost everyone who knows how to read has delighted in some book of Mrs. GASKELL’S, and most of those who have done so would find a keen, curious pleasure in seeing the rooms where she lived and handling the things that used to be everyday in her hands…