Birthday quote

Selwyn Image
English clergyman, designer, particularly of stained glass windows, and poet.

Born February 17, 1849, Bodiam, Sussex
Died August 21, 1930, Holloway, London

Timidity and impudence are both alike fatal to an artist: timidity, which makes it impossible for him to see with his own eyes, and find his own methods; and impudence, which makes him imagine that his own eyes, and his own methods, are the best that ever were.

Editor's note -
For AudlemOnline, we use a particular website as the source of most of our birthday quotes – I was preparing the item for February 17th, and I was really struggling to find a suitable candidate (the only "persons of interest" were a couple of American footballers and an obscure Chinese writer).
Beginning to panic, I looked down the small print (i.e. the nonentities) and there to my surprise was a man called Selwyn Image. Now you won't have heard of him and nor will anyone else – he was a late Victorian member of the Arts and Crafts movement – he knew people like John Ruskin and Oscar Wilde.
However, the point is that he was my great-great-uncle by marriage. My parents looked after his widow, a very elderly and somewhat irascible lady, just after the War I can just about recall her in one of those tall, gloomy, terrace houses just outside Kew Gardens in London.
She left us a bit of money when she died (not a fortune it must be emphasised) so I sort of "owe him one". I have found a bit of a quotation and a picture from the family archives.
John Tilling

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