I pronounced judgment to this effect: – That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 16. Jane is upset when she learns that the beautiful Blanche Ingram is to be at the party attended by Mr. Rochester. She thinks that she is a fool to believe Rochester would choose her over Blanche Ingram. She questions her own self worth. She says, using a simile for emphasis, that she has gorged herself on the poison of sweet lies “as if it were nectar.”