 | The Cavalier daily Thursday, December 2, 1971 |  |
The Tour
The guide discreetly grabs
your dollar then launches into
her spiel, leading you from
room to room all the while
gushing of the greatness of
Walter Russell. One sees letters
written to Russell from
Rudyard Kipling, Theodore
Dreiser, Eugene O'Neil, Cecil
B. DeMille, even King Albert of
Belgium. Startling scientific
treatises, medals, architectural
plans and photos of completed
buildings, nearly thirty busts of
such men as Thomas Edison,
George Gershwin, Franklin
Roosevelt, Joseph Auerbach,
and eight alone of Mark Twain.
'The Four Freedoms'
This Is One Of The Four Statues By Walter Russell In The Gardens
The remainder of the first
floor can best be described as a
monument to the life and
works of Walter Russell. His
painting on the walls, his
sculpture in every corner, and a
multitude of articles under
glass tabletops.
"Rarely in history have so
many of the works of any
genius been gathered together
in one place during his lifetime.
The works of most great artists
are scattered throughout the
museums of the world, where
they are seen as isolated
examples, in pictures or
sculpture, and without the
many documents of human
interest, which tell the life
story of their creator.
"Posterity will value this
collection as a whole because it
tells the human story of your
life as well as all of your
works."
From The Brochure
The mind boggles at the
greatness of Walter Russell. But
finally the sixty four dollar
question crops up: If this guy
was so great, why haven't I
heard of him?
A closer look at things
reveals the answer. The
painting is at best mediocre;
the sculpture is good, but so
are countless thousands of
others; the letters from all
those luminaries are seen as
superficial when one looks past
the signature. Walter Russell
was good at a great many
things, but great at nothing,
except perhaps figure skating.
The brochure refers to him
as "the most versatile man in
America." The guide tells you
At Swannanoa Represent But
Two Percent Of Walter Russell's
Total Output'
work at Swannanoa represent
only two per cent of Russell's
output. Rather than versatile,
the word to describe Russell is
prolific. Rather than great, he
was fast.
Lao seems to be cast in
much the same mold. She met
Walter at the base of the Great
Pyramid, he the older and
wiser, she young and
precocious. Lao now runs the
dynasty that she and Walter
Lao Russell
Swannanoa and the
management of their
correspondence school.
Lao Russell is a cosmic
messenger who bears new
knowledge to mankind, much
needed by him in this dire hour
of a falling civilization which is
rapidly disintegrating because
of man-greed, fear and war.
Her sole purpose in life is to
bring unity to the human race
through man's understanding
of man which can best be
summed up by both of the
Russells' teachings as The
Science of Man.
From The Brochure
She too sculpts, paints, and
writes in voluminous quantities,
though far from surpassing
Walter's total. She is the
gracious host of Swannanoa,
and her presence is nearly as
pervasive as Walter's when one
enters the house.
Lao's greatest achievement
is the thirty foot statue of
Christ overlooking the gardens.
But, as with all their works of
art, "Christ of the Blue Ridge"
took only months to create
and it shows.
In her spiritual
consciousness she saw the
illumined Jesus looking
ecstatically upward into the
night from a high pinnacle of
God's Sacred Mountain, as
though in great compassion for
suffering man who had brought
such agony upon himself by
not heeding, or even
comprehending His Message of
Brotherly Love and the unity
of man with God.
The invisible Light of the
Soul of Universal Man shone
from his eyes and from around
His head the whole spectrum
of "The Light of The World"
extended into the night.
From His lips again came
"The Sermon on The Mount"
in words which inner ears alone
could hear. Very slowly His
words came-and with great
pathos as though mankind had
never yet heard those words.
From The Brochure
Talking with Lao Russell is
an enjoyable though confusing
experience. She is a very open
person. Our special tour of the
second floor included her
office, study, bedroom, and
even her bathroom. She
obviously has a great love for
her home, constantly pointing
various articles with the
constant phrase "Isn't that
lovely?"
She speaks of everything,
dipping occasionally into her
philosophy. "...each man is an
indivisible extension of every
other man, as the branches of a
tree are bound together to
express the whole of life, and
that we cannot hurt out fellow
man without equally hurting
ourselves."
| The Cavalier daily Thursday, December 2, 1971 | |