Their progress in some of the technical branches, as we shall perceive, was indisputably unsatisfactory.

But the mind of the Boy seems to have been opened by this Duhan, to a lively, and in some sort genial, perception of things round him;--of the strange confusedly opulent Universe he had got into; and of the noble and supreme function which Intelligence holds there; supreme in Art as in Nature, beyond all other functions whatsoever.

Duhan was now turned of thirty: a cheerful amiable Frenchman; poor, though of good birth and acquirements; originally from Champagne.

Friedrich loved him very much; always considered him his spiritual father; and to the end of Duhan's life, twenty years hence, was eager to do him any good in his power.
Anxious always to repair, for poor Duhan, the great sorrows he came to on his account, as we shall see.
Of Graf Fink von Finkenstein, who has had military experiences of all kinds and all degrees, from marching as prisoner into France, "wounded and without his hat," to fighting at Malplaquet, at Blenheim, even at Steenkirk, as well as Stralsund; who is now in his sixtieth year, and seems to have been a gentleman of rather high solemn manners, and indeed of undeniable perfections,--of this supreme Count Fink we learn almost nothing farther in the Books, except that his little Pupil did not dislike him either.

The little Pupil took not unkindly to Fink; welcoming any benignant human ray, across these lofty gravities of the OBERHOFMEISTER; went often to his house in Berlin; and made acquaintance with two young Finks about his own age, whom he found there, and who became important to him, especially the younger of them, in the course of the future.