The progress of the typewriter, once a real start had been made, continued without serious interruption. The very conditions which made early progress so slow and difficult now began to reverse themselves. The machine, with widening opportunities, proved itself more than ever a most efficient self-advertiser, and every typewriter in actual service carried its own message of legibility and utility to many thousands. In course of time typewriting became as familiar as pen writing in business correspondence, and the superior speed of the machine soon suggested new uses for which the pen had never been employed. The typewritten circular letter came into being, the forerunner of the various duplicating devices, and indeed of the whole system of direct-by-mail advertising as we know it today. The United States mail bags soon felt, in their bulkier contents, the impetus of the new machine. General business also felt this impetus. Formerly lashed to a pen point, it now became articulate, and as business creates business, so the new forms of business activity, fostered by the typewriter, opened new and wider opportunities for ever increasing sales. The machine, which won its entry as a labor saver, soon intrenched itself as a business builder, and general business, which was merely helped by the machine at the outset, became completely transformed by it in the end. This wonderful transition has come about so gradually that the business world, though proudly aware of the fact itself, is only dimly conscious of the part played by the great transforming factor. We call this the age of big business, and so it is, but it is only necessary to compare the average business office and business methods of today with those of fifty years ago to realize the extent to which modern business is an actual outcome of the writing machine. The story of the typewriter in Europe, and in foreign countries generally, is very nearly a repetition of its history in the United States. In every case we find the same early years of struggle and in the end the same transforming influence on business and business methods. The introductory struggle in America was hard enough, but in the Old World there were some even greater obstacles to be encountered. Here the writing machine was forced to make headway against the more deliberate and leisurely habits of the people, and the more deeply rooted conservatism of an older civilization. There were also some graver practical difficulties, as we shall presently see.