PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 131 



today. Grasping a business proposition or meeting a 

 business contingency he surveyed it rapidly, judging 

 and acting promptly and almost invariably his decision 

 was right. He rarely made mistakes in judgment or 

 errors in acting. It is but one illustration of this to say 

 that only ten days before his death he had balanced his 

 books and brought forward an inventory of his estate — 

 up to January 1, 1901 — everything being clearly stated 

 and so complete that no mistake could possibly arise. 

 Had this not been the case at each recurring year pre- 

 viously, it might almost have seemed as though he was 

 expecting death. 



In 1853, Mr. Boardman commenced a private diary, 

 keeping the same in the small pocket form so well known, 

 the little books being uniformly two and one-half by four 

 inches in size and being printed and ruled to from six to 

 ten lines under each day's date. The first entry was 

 made Monday, January 14 and the record was continued 

 for a period of forty-eight years. It is indeed remarkable 

 that in this long time but two breaks occur in the daily 

 record. The first was for a single day, March 1, 1884, 

 when he was in Florida; the other from March 8 to 

 March 23, inclusive, following the death of his wife and 

 during his own severe illness. The records are neces- 

 sarily brief, being made in Mr. Boardman's neat and 

 uniform handwriting and generally with a pencil. They 

 embrace items of personal expenses, state of the weather, 

 where he was on each day, letters written, birds seen and 

 shot, his occupations for the day, engagements, where 

 he attended church and who preached, with other similar 

 memoranda. More than anything else this diary attests 



