;
though this fact is not, perhaps, so familiar as the other. I met a
friend, we will suppose, a few days since at my club, and we exchanged a
few words. My mind was somewhat preoccupied at the time, and the
occurrence did not stamp itself on my recollection. To-day I meet him
again, and he reminds me of a promise I made him at the time. His
reminder suffices to restore a dim image of the incident, but the fact
of its dimness leads to the illusion that it really happened much longer
ago, and it is only on my friend's strong assurances, and on reasoning
from other data that it must have occurred the day he mentions, that I
am able to dismiss the illusion.

The most striking examples of the illusory effect of mere vividness,
involving a complete detachment of the event from the prominent
landmarks of the past, are afforded by public events which lie outside
the narrower circle of our personal life, and which do not in the
natural course of things become linked to any definitely localized
points in the field of memory. 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. It seems