James Boswell Finds His Voice

An important purpose of the journal was simply to produce an ongoing record of life as Boswell lived it: “In this way I shall preserve many things that would otherwise be lost in oblivion.” In an early journal Boswell found an apt metaphor for the telling details he wanted to preserve: “In description we omit insensibly many little touches which give life to objects. In one of his later journals Boswell said the same thing: “Man’s continuation of existence is a flux of ideas in the same body, like the flux of a river in the same channel.”

Source: www.laphamsquarterly.org