The reality has displaced from my mind an illusion much more magnificent than itself.... I am metamorphosed; I am translated; I am an ass's head, a clod, a wooden spoon, a fat weed growing on Lethe's brink, a stock, a stone, a petrifaction. For have I not seen Niagara, the wonder of wonders, and felt — no words can tell what — disappointment?

Memoirs of the Life of Anna Jameson (1878)