Ever since his birth I've been mulling over this quote from Lucy Maud Montgomery's journal (that I read in her biography) after the birth of her eldest son. It may be a little morbid to pair it with baptism pictures, but I'm just going to leave it right here anyway:
"As I hold little Punch's dear body in my arms I am lost in wonder--and awe--and terror--when I realize that everybody was once a baby just like this. All the great men, all the good men, all the wicked men of history. Napoleon was once a chubby baby, kicking on his nurse's lap--Caesar once smacked his lips over his mother's milk as does my mannie--Milton once squirmed with colic--Shakespeare cried in the night when he grew hungry. Yes, and--horrible thought--Nero once looked up with just such dear, star-like innocent eyes and Judas cooed to himself with the same sweet noises and vocables--Nay, even that wondrous Person...even He was once a white, dimple-fisted, waxen-faced little creature like this, cuddled in his mother's arms and drawing his life from her breast. What a terrible thing it is to be a mother--almost as terrible as it is beautiful! Oh, mothers of Caesar and Judas and Jesus, what did you dream of when you held your babies against your beating heart. Of nothing but sweetness and goodness and holiness perhaps. Yet one of the children was a Caesar--and one was a Judas--and one a Messiah! (December 1, 1912)" (pg 574)Terrible and beautiful indeed.
