But it is clear enough that the notes which Boswell made at the time must have been very unlike the final form in which he wrote the dialogue. In the course of conversations in which he himself took part, it would have been impossible without shorthand to make so full a record. The kind of notes which Boswell took may be gathered from the following passage: I this evening boasted, that though I did not write what is called stenography, or short-hand, in appropriated characters devised for the purpose, I had a method of my own of writing half words, and leaving out some altogether, so as yet to keep the substance and language of any discourses which I had heard so much in view, that I could give it very completely soon after I had taken it down.[6] It would seem then that what was written down during a conversation was far from including every word which was spoken; it was rather an aid, though a very substantial aid, to memory. We may conjecture that the most important expressions were recorded, and the course of the argument indicated, so as to be intelligible to Boswell, but not even to him, perhaps, after a long interval. He was able to 'keep in view' the 'substance and language.' To give a full and permanent form to these rough drafts must therefore have been a work of considerable labour; and it is this no doubt that the journal accomplished. We may see in the 'Life' the traces of two kinds of record. For we have sometimes the actual words of the speakers, but at others only the purport of their remarks. What we should naturally suppose--if this theory of the respective functions of the notes and the journal is correct--that the former came from the journal and the latter from the notes taken down at the moment, or sometimes perhaps shortly afterwards--is confirmed by the fact that, when we have only the less complete account, Boswell very often regrets the neglect of his journal, and talks of presenting such scraps as he has; and on one occasion says: I kept very imperfect notes of his conversation, which had I according to my usual custom _written out at large soon after the time_, much might have been preserved.[7] He was obliged in consequence of his neglect to write the text directly from notes; with their aid he filled in what he could remember; but he dispensed with the intermediate assistance of the journal, and the account is therefore far less full.