These events may be very stirring and engrossing for the time, but in many cases they pass out of the mind just as suddenly as they entered it.

We have no occasion to revert to them, and if by chance we are afterwards reminded of them, they are pretty certain to look too near, just because the fact of their having greatly interested us has served to render their images particularly vivid.
A curious instance of this illusory effect was supplied not long since by the case of the ex-detectives, the expiration of whose term of punishment (three years) served as an occasion for the newspapers to recall the event of their trial and conviction.

The news that three years had elapsed since this well-remembered occurrence proved very startling to myself, and to a number of my friends, all of us agreeing that the event did not seem to be at more than a third of its real distance.

More than one newspaper commented on the apparent rapidity of the time, and this shows pretty plainly that there was some cause at work, such as I have suggested, producing a common illusion.
I have treated of these illusions connected with the estimate of past time and the dating of past events as passive illusions, not involving any active predisposition on the part of the imagination.

At the same time, it is possible that error in these matters may occasionally depend on a present condition of the feelings and the imagination.