‘The quality that struck her most forcibly was honesty.’ Photo: courtesy of Lloyd’s of London
An honest living: Roger Babington-Hill’s Thought for the Week
‘His word was his bond.’
In Roger Lipsey’s book Gurdjieff Reconsidered, an exploration of the quintessential Western esoteric teacher of the twentieth century, there is reference to Katherine Mansfield’s visit to The Prieuré, a former priory where Gurdjieff had established his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man. Mansfield, a modernist writer and critic, had tuberculosis, and spent her last years seeking a cure. She eventually suffered a fatal pulmonary haemorrhage at The Prieuré, and Gurdjieff’s reputation suffered – unfairly, according to contemporary accounts. But in fact Lipsey records that Mansfield’s impression was very positive, and the quality that struck her there most forcibly was honesty.
