It is strange. The unreality of it seems to enter one's real life, penetrate into the bones, and make the very heartbeats pulsate illusions through the arteries. One's will becomes the slave of hallucinations, responds only to shadowy impulses, waits on imagination alone. A strange state, a trying experience, a kind of fiery trial of untruthfulness. And one goes through it with an exaltation as false as all the rest of it. One goes through it, -- and there's nothing to show at the end. Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

-- Joseph Conrad, "To E. L. Sanderson" ( 1899 )²