ople. But men only slightly
cultivated use stereotyped expressions, above all when they are growing
old; the language of some of them is almost entirely composed of
aphorisms and proverbs. If Mr Robert Hyslop did not altogether belong to
this class, he yet, his son tells us, used particular expressions, and
always the same in analogous cases; some of them indeed were altogether
peculiar to him.

Now, when he communicates through Mrs Piper, he uses the same language
that he used when alive. Professor Hyslop has incessantly occasion to
remark, "This expression is quite like my father; he would have used it
when he was alive in such a case." There is even a passage of the
communications so characteristic in this way that it is nearly too much
so; it would almost suggest fraud. I will reproduce one of these
passages.[79] "Keep quiet, don't worry about anything, as I used to say.
It does not pay. You are not the strongest man, you know, and health is
important for you. Cheer up now and be quite yourself. Remember it does
not pay, and life is too short there for you to spend it in worrying.
What you cannot have, be content without, but do not worry, and not for
me. Devoted you were to me always, and I have nothing to complain of
except your uneasy temperament, and that I will certainly help."

When a father has repeated the same advice in the same terms hundreds of
times in his life, and when, after his death, he repeats it again
through an intermediary, it must certainly be difficult to say, "That is
not he; it is not my father."

I should much like to give the reader the greatest possible number of
these small facts, which convince us almost in spite of ourselves. But
it is impossible to do so without surrounding them with commentaries
indispensable to bring out all their importance. Thus, Mr Robert had a
horse named Tom, an old and faithful servant. It had grown too old to
work, but he would not kill it. He pensioned it, so to speak, and left
it to die a natural death on the farm. At one sitting he asks, "Where is
Tom?" and as James Hyslop did not understand what Tom he was speaking
of, the communicator added, "Tom, the horse, what has become of him?"

Mr Robert Hyslop wrote with quill pens, which he trimmed himself; he had
often trimmed them for his son James. He recalls this detail about the
quill pens at one of the sittings.

He was very bald, and had complained of feeling his head cold during the
night. His wife m