A favorite quote explained

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.