The quality of the writing done by these early models is better known today than the machines themselves, for this writing has been preserved to us in Sholes's own letters. From the day when Sholes completed his first model, he seems to have discarded the pen entirely. From that time all his personal letters are typewritten, the signature included, which would be considered extreme, even by the present-day business man. As for the quality of the typing in these letters, let it speak for itself. The letter shown on page 51, the original of which is in the Remington Historical Collection, was written by Sholes from Milwaukee on June 9, 1872. The typing in this letter is interesting because it shows capital letters only, to which all the Sholes models were restricted. But even more interesting is the contents of the letter itself, for in it we find Sholes in one of his not infrequent fits of deep despondency. "We shall be in a position," he says, "to furnish good machines provided any person is in a position to want them after they are furnished. You know that my apprehension is that the thing may take for a while, and for a while there may be an active demand for them, but that, like any other novelty, it will have its brief day and be thrown aside. Of course I earnestly hope that such will not prove to be the case, and Densmore laughs at the idea when I suggest it, but I should like to be sure that it would be otherwise." Think of it! The typewriter a mere passing novelty! And think of such an idea entering the head of the inventor of the machine! How much better he was building than he knew! As we look back on this period of typewriter history we hardly know which to admire more, Sholes's inventive genius or Densmore's sustaining faith. Of equal interest is a photograph from the same historical collection, dating from the same year, 1872. It shows the daughter of Sholes operating another one of his experimental models. What motive, we wonder, ever induced Miss Sholes to take such an interest in the machine, to learn to operate it, and to have her photograph taken seated before it? Probably it was only a daughter's natural interest in her father's invention. It is difficult to believe that Miss Sholes foresaw the wonderful future of the machine in connection with woman's work. Yet, as an accidental prophecy, this photograph of the first woman who ever operated a typewriter should be of interest to every one of the vast army of women who today owe their living to the writing machine.