Letter from Washington to Sally Fairfax. Source: Chernow, Ron. Washington – a Life. Penguin Books Ltd, 2011. (page 32)
Tis true, I profess myself a votary to Love. I acknowledge that a lady is in the case and further I confess that this lady is known to you. Yes, Madam, as well as she is to one who is too sensible of her charms to deny the power whose influence he feels and must ever submit to. I feel the force of her amiable beauties in the recollections of a thousand tender passages that I could wish to obliterate till I am bid to revive them. But experience, alas!, sadly reminds me how impossible this is and evinces an opinion which I have long entertained that there is a destiny which has the sovereign control of our actions, not to be resisted by the strongest efforts of human nature.
The American Presidents 