Jacobs & Jenner had their law offices near the north entrance, and during the progress of the fire many persons whose residences or places of business were along its actual or threatened track, presuming on our generosity and permission, brought armloads of portable valuables, snatched by them from the very teeth of the fire, and in an excited manner, placed them against one of the walls in the offices. So doing, they rushed out in the hope of reaching their residences or places of business again; but the surrounding wall of fire, with its intense heat, forbade. Some of them soon returned and dropped into seats, and their countenances were the pictures of sadness, sorrow and despair. I said to one, a noble specimen of physical manhood and latent energy: "Sir, your actions are unmanly; hope, even in your case, has not bidden the world farewell; cheer up, sir--just before dawn the darkness is the deepest." Within a year from that time my admonished friend was worth far more than he was before the fire; and he often reminded me of my rebuke, as he called it. Being satisfied that the offices, papers, library and furniture were safe, I locked the doors and went up to my residence on Fourth Avenue, where I had a commanding view of the progress of the fire. The view was grand but terrible--sublime but cruel. I never before was so impressed with the idea of annihilation, as I was in viewing that rolling, rushing, leaping and devouring volume or field of fire. In other days I had witnessed miles of fire, impelled by a fierce wind rushing over a prairie covered with tall and dry grass; but it only stirred within me the emotions of beauty, grandeur, and sublimity; there was nothing in it of terror or desolation, nothing of the wrecking of brilliant prospects, nothing of blighted hopes, nor of gloomy disappointment intensifying into despair. Ever and anon, as the rushing waves of the Seattle fire would roll over and envelope a drug or other store where powder or other explosives were kept, a volume of flame would shoot upward, with a deafening roar, towards the clouds, as though claiming the storm-king as its kinsman. To the owners of lots in the burned district the fire was a blessing in disguise. To them there was a smiling face behind a seemingly frowning Providence. Even if they were the owners of the frail wooden structure that had encumbered their lots, the structures added nothing to the value; and the rapid and unprecedented increase in the value of their holdings amply compensated for any losses by the fire. The real loosers were the renters of shops, stores or saloons, where goods, tools, materials and machinery were destroyed by the intense heat, or went up wholly in flames. But a few families lived in the zone of the fire. As to them, many kind hands soon removed their household goods beyond the danger-line.