In a letter sent from Grosvenor Gate to Sarah Brydges Willyams, and dated Dec. 5th, 1859, Benjamin Disraeli writes, "My sister is very seriously unwell, & Mrs. Disraeli is with her -- otherwise we shd. have left town for Hughenden tomorrow" (Rothschild 128). On Dec. 10, 1859, he writes to William Jolliffe, "I am in town - permenantly alas! - & all the establishment ordered up from Hughenden - my sister in a most critical - not to say hopeless state - & to me most sudden" (DD/HY C/2165). On Dec. 12th he writes to Lord Resdale, "I only delayed writing to you, that I might do so amid my books, in the tranquillity of Hughenden....But, alas! Hughenden we have never reached! We are planted here amid the fogs of London, & in a gloom of moral, as well as material, darkness: Summoned suddenly to the bedside of my sister, our nearest & dearest relative, & whose loss to us will be irreparable" (D2002 C38). It would appear that this letter is the last to be concerned with any topic other than Sarah's illness until Dec. 28th, when he must send a sympathy note to William Jolliffe for what appears to have been a complicated pregnancy of his daughter-in-law's through which the baby does not survive (see B/XX/I/82). In this letter Disraeli also mentions politics (Gladstone's motion on the Suez Canal); therefore, his period of intense grieving seems to be ending.