December 17 Thursday – Sam had brought back from Howells an inscribed copy of A Foregone Conclusion as a gift for Joseph Twichell. Sam presented the book to Joe. In the evening Sam and Joe went to a benefit concert at the Roberts Opera House for the Hartford Young Men’s Institute. They listened to the Yale Glee Club. Twichell graduated from Yale in 1859 [MTL 6: 325n2]. Joe called the Glee Club “a real feast” [Twichell’s journals, Yale].