It is my opinion they received nothing and
were obliged to return on their own expenses. The papers were full of
sarcasm and by-play upon the names of the prominent men who had the
matter in hand. "Charles Stoddard, our poet, had his genius completely
crushed under the $20 that he did not receive for his work." The San
Francisco Chronicle said further: "In the meantime, the present
creditors are singing with much vim the Oweratoweriwoe of the
Goetterdaemmerung."
Laying all jokes aside, it was a great event. It would give the reader
only a faint idea of the mass of humanity to express its size merely
by so many thousands. The spectator looking down upon it from some
upper seat of the boundless gallery of the choral amphitheater saw an
awe-inspiring scene. People in numbers almost as great as the standing
army of the United States were packed so closely together that all
individuality was lost, and the pulsating aggregate looked like the
exposed and mottled back of some submerged sea monster. Between the
parts of the programme the combined hum of ten thousand voices floated
upon the air like the deep boom of the surf on the seashore. When the
raised seats were well filled in the vast gallery the graduation was
lost to the eye, and the whole presented a plane surface as rich in
coloring as if it had been a hanging of rarely worked tapestry. The
main floor was one solid mass of female loveliness and manly worth.
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