Page:My last friend, dog Dick (IA mylastfrienddogd00deam).pdf/39



This Study is valuable. "Il mio ultimo Amico," My Dog Dick, is valuable or De Amicis would never have written it, nor would J. G. Lista have translated it, nor would our greatest naturalist, John Burroughs, have touched, ever so remotely on the same theme, "The Animal Mind," including the Mind of the Dog.

De Amicis writes lovingly. His heart is full of his subject. He longs to prove that Dick has a mind and a soul. Browning, like De Amicis, is always in search of a soul. He concerns himself about the soul of a dog, Tray, who saves a drowning child and then returns to bring ashore the child's doll.

"Outside should suffice for evidence:

And whoso desires to penetrate

Deeper, must dive by the spirit-sense—"

"Love greatens and glorifies

Till God's all aglow to the loving eyes

In what was mere earth before,"

says Browning.