love and j.crew

I was going to post on Valentines Day but try to wrap your mind around this...I had plans! Groundbreaking! I wanted to post some commentary I found about one my favorite quotes that I found to fitting for the day. Also, I just can't help but share the J.Crew fall presentation for fall 2013. I was obsessively checking my phone Tuesday morning waiting to see pictures that would unveil what mastermind Jenna Lyons had dreamt up for this collection. She blows me away every time as she continues to evolve this brand into one that's earning the respect of the fashion industries toughest critics.

"I've desired to elaborate on an amazing quote from CS Lewis for a while now. The quote in its entirety is "Even to see her walk across the room is a liberal education." Easily recognized as an adoration for "that special woman" in any man's life, the proclamation is witty, succinct, and curiously flattering. I'm convinced I have a grip on what Lewis wanted to convey. First, a little history on why CS Lewis wrote this.

It has not been proven without a doubt, but many people witness to a romantic love between Lewis and a close friend named Jane Moore. The line is pulled from a letter to an exceptionally close childhood friend, Arthur Greeves. I myself have not read the letter, but I assume the praise is of Moore, considering most evidence for his and her love come from these personal letters. Therefore, it's reasonable to say the quote is intended for a lover - specifically Lewis' Jane Moore.

The subject of the sentence is the woman walking across a room. Simple, yet alluring. Remember, the view is from the eyes of her lover. She's like an angel gracefully moving across the room - where? Who cares! I'm captivated by her beauty, her figure, her hair...

Now, the difficulty (and brilliance) of the quote comes from the predicate. Seeing her walk across the room is a liberal education. A liberal education? Author and popular campus figure Russell Kirk clarifies the mystifying term, "Our term 'liberal education' is far older than the use of the word 'liberal' as a term of politics. By 'liberal education' we mean an ordering and integrating of knowledge for the benefit of the free person - as contrasted with technical or professional schooling, now somewhat vaingloriously called 'career education.'" Political philospher Allan Bloom writes that liberal education in its purest form is the imagination and a passionate relationship to art and thought. Furthermore, dissected from Sir William Hamilton's Metaphysics is a concise definition of liberal education as "the perfection of man as an end."

With a true understanding of the purpose and role of a liberal education, contemplate the power of C.S. Lewis' quote - or more so, the power of the woman! I can't bring myself to even put it into the category of "compliments." To think, that the simple motion of a lover walking across a room, accomplishes in mere moments what years of schooling and mentoring may come close to doing for man. Every poem, piece of art, painfully deduced theorem, spiritual contemplation, pure beauty - all resolved in that room, at that moment."

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