Edmondo De Amicis

“ Poor Dick! Even to this point your life has intertwined itself with mine, and, thanks to you, I feel again something of that sweetness which for years I haven't felt,—the pleasure that comes to the spirit from the caress given to the little and the weak, by which their fate is in our hands, repeating the affectionate language he hears in babyhood, and giving the predestined caress when infancy no longer exists in the house. The caress of the parent is the child's fortune. ”

“ How do I dare to complain? Ah, it's a shame, dear Dick. Oh what a vile beggar is a man sometimes! I went reluctantly to the Municipal Hall to pay your tax. As if it were not an undeserved fortune, a direct gold contract, to have a good friend, faithful, and safe like you, for the miserable sum of four dollars! What do you want now! You that scratch with your paws against my trousers, looking at the door and then at me with the eyes of a beggar? I understand. You are boiling all over with curiosity to go and see who has entered. ”

“ Here he is again who is trembling from the ears to the paws because he has heard a brotherly voice from far, far away, and he debates within himself whether to leave me or not. Ah! Little one. He is right. He is bored. But it is his destiny. Woe to him who falls into the hands of a confidant, even if it is a dog.
— . . . . What if I should be the first to go—listen to this also, dear Dick—if I shall be the first, will you remember me, when you will never see me any more, when the young master will be the only one left to you? ”

“ He made us feel from the first that he surely would become for us, not only a pleasant distraction, but a companion and a comforter, and in time no matter how much care we had given him, if we should count up the debts of reciprocal gratitude, he would surely be the creditor.
Yes, dear Dick, you are not any more a dog for us. You are a friend. And you are just the one that we really needed for our house, a friend that does not talk nor laugh. ”

“ How clever of Dog Dick!
Such are the points selected by De Amicis as signs that the dog has reason.
"A dog has no reason, and so you can not convince him." This is the scientific way of looking at it. "It is the reason that is convinced." Reason demands sufficient grounds for being convinced. We know a fact when we believe it to be true on sufficient grounds. De Amicis with exceeding truthfulness believes only what he knows to be true on sufficient grounds and so he observes every detail, and stores it away. ”

“ At times, it seems that you understand that I have a persistent and terrible idea, or that you suspect it, and endeavor to divine what it may be, and at times through my mind there passes the faney—strange, absurd, incredible—but still deludes for the duration of a flash of lightning, and which makes every nerve in my body quiver, this idea that you do know. ”

“ Oh, yes! even those two dusky spots, which break the white of his hair, like two stains of coffee on a table cloth, remind me of those masses of loud colour which the clowns of the circus have on their backs to amuse the crowds of children, and even those two postmarks which seem as if nature had put them across his back, and at the root of his tail, for a joke, always rouse up in me, I do not know what boyish cheerfulness, silly and serene, when I think that he does not know that he has them. ”

“ And when an importunate singer in the court-yard sings a merry song that makes my heart ache, you, barking to him from the terrace to make him stop,—drown out his voice and spare me from that torment.
And when I return at night from the street where I have seen or heard of some infamous action that has filled me with disgust and loathing for the human race, I am comforted by finding in you the virtue and affection which I feel in the darkness from your caress and cheerful greeting at the opening of the door. ”

“ And when he stands up on his hind legs like a puppet which has been set up,—omitting his dignity as a quadruped without foreseeing the laughter which he will arouse,—to reach for a piece of cake that is held high over his head,—is he giving any different idea of the cringing ambitions that shame his dignity as a biped who throws himself like a quadruped before the influential personages who show him the ribbon of a cross! ”

“ Why do I complain at your barking when the bell rings, and then listen with endless patience to many unwelcome bores, who make more noise than you, and they do not say anything wiser or better? Why do I despise you when you stick your mouth into something dirty,—and I have read with pleasure so many filthy books? And with pleasure I shake hands with many unclean people who are living just such lives as I read about in the books. ”

“ When he winds himself up like a ball, with his mouth toward the South Pole, showing nothing but a half-closed eye, that keeps track of me in all my movements around the room, he recalls to my mind some elderly people wrapped up and sitting by the side of the fire watching, with half an eye, their grand-children, in whom they see the intention of playing a joke. ”

“ And isn't it an image of that comic but pitiful spectacle, the imbecility of a man who bursts out and threatens injuries to himself after he has made a blunder, when Dick runs around in a circle, growling, and biting his tail as if it were the appendix of one of his enemies! ”

“ The poor dog does not get any credit for having Reason, or a mind because he does not laugh. Lista says that he had a dog that did laugh. Dick never laughs and De Amicis says nothing on the point, but Burroughs discredits the intelligence, or mind of animals because they have no perception of the incongruous. ”

“ In the sleepless hours of the night when I try to avoid thoughts from the present, past, and future, and from every thing which can hold the mind upon the realities of life, it terrifies me that there is need of taking refuge in fancies that are outside of humanity and it is in thoughts of you that I find the refuge ”

“ How many times in my life have I shunned the company of educated and venerable senators, by whom I was annoyed, and then gone and rubbed elbows with hair-brained people who have the reputation of being corrupt, if they have amused me? ”

“ When he walks tortuosly, with that twisting of his spine, he is so comic that I can never look at him without laughing, again. The old image comes up to me of some old soldiers feeble and exhausted belonging to the ancient national guard, walking in the same twisted manner when they marched on the drill-grounds, with their harmless rifles on their shoulders, to save Italy. ”

“ Now this little living being that, while he runs distressing around the room with an air of idleness, eaten up by weariness, and while he runs in haste with the anxiety of busy, hard labor, peering into every hole, searching every corner, scrutinizing every dark spot like a detective,—stealing handkerchiefs and balls of cotton,—allows himself to be pursued. ”

“ Sometimes he assaults fearlessly a large and vigorous man, and then frightened to death, he runs away in front of a mere simpleton. He fools around for an hour with a newspaper, does the furious lion against a shoe, smells the letters like a lover, [1] and noses books like a book-lover, and listens at the door like a spy. ”

“ And the way his sonorous snoring and broken yawn ending with a yelp with which he some times cuts short the story of a tiresome visitor, makes me think of the ingenuously sincere yawn in which a child gives vent to his ennui in some stupid conversation in the parlour, causing everybody to slyly laugh, just because he expresses their common sentiments, with a frankness forbidden to the well-bred by "The Galateo." ”

“ With what boldness I inveigh against you, when without permission, you appropriate the leg of a pigeon, and I, for the sake of genteel living, make a good face to the rascals enriched by fraud, and oppression! ”

“ Those two ears so agile and delicate, that gather simultaneously hundreds of different sounds, near and far, imperceptible to the human hearing! How many intriguing busy-bodies would like to have them! ”

“ Burroughs imputes to inherited impulse what seems mental processes. "The dog is convinced before he is born," writes Lista. "A man can be reached only through his mind," is the opinion of Burroughs. But an animal is the creature of habit. "We can not develop its mind as we can that of a child." Editor, M. E. B. ↑ The psychological point is that the dog has some method of "saying plainly:" &c. ↑ The original Italian reads: "Cease from distilling your brain." We all know that a dog will sit by his master and watch over him contentedly while the master sleeps. ”

“ But he will "worry round" when the master "distils or wastes his brains" in wandering thoughts. The dog plainly recognizes the difference and speaks about it. De Amicis reasons by inference. It is interesting to study his subtle method of approaching the point, "Has the dog a mind?" and see him bring out his evidences. Watch a child at play. Does he distil his brains? Watch a dog, like Dick. Is his mind, yes mind, always on the alert? M. E. B., Editor ↑ The Laws of Etiquette. All the people of quality in Italy learn good manners from "The Galateo." ”

“ END.
↑ Yes, I am talking of you, Dick, as long as you are awake and looking at me—yes you who answers my scolding with a growl; and endur This is explained by one of my critics: "Each lady perfumes her letters with some fragrant powder . . . the lover knows one from another, and prefers that of his own lady." EDITOR. ↑ In a newspaper article in the New York Times, John Burroughs is credited with saying of his dog, Lark: "He understood not only what I said, but what I thought." ”