William Soutar, 12 de Janeiro de 1936

I realise now that I would marry if I could do so; but I am not wholly blind to the fact that my arrival at this nuptial mood has been accelerated by adventitious means. What woman - granting she overlook my disabilities - would expect that my affection was entirely unselfish. Yet - and this is perhaps a confession of my overweening self-regard rather than of my confidence in the maganimity of women - I do believe that a woman would accept me for what I am and that our marriage should be one of mutual affection, and not a 'second best' accommodation for security and comfort. No doubt to an outsider it must appear preposterous that at my age I should consider not an impossibility to win the affection of such a woman as I might have reasonably hoped to have won when a whole man; but the hope is there and places me, I suppose, among the incorrigible.