Consequently, it takes much less to produce a given amount of mental excitation in childhood than in after-life.

In looking back on this part of our history, we recall for the most part just those events and scenes which deeply stirred our minds by their strangeness, novelty, etc., and so impressed themselves on the tablet of our memory; and it is this sense of something out of the ordinary beat that gives the characteristic colour to our recollection.

In other words, we remember something as wonderful, admirable, exceptionally delightful, and so on, rather than as a definitely imagined event.

This being so, we unconsciously transform the past occurrence by reasoning from our present standard of what is impressive.

Who has not felt an unpleasant disenchantment on revisiting some church, house, or park that seemed a wondrous paradise to his young eyes?
All our feelings are capable of leading us into this kind of illusion.