The world as it stands is no illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of a night; we wake up to it again for ever and ever; we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it.

Henry James (1843-1916) American writer

Essay (1874-04), “Iwan Turgéniew,” sec. 3, North American Review, Vol. 98, Art. 4
    (Source)

Reviewing Ivan Turgenev's Frühlingsfluthen and Ein König Lear des Dorfes (1873). Collected in French Poets and Novelists, "Ivan Turgénieff," sec. 3 (1878)