Excuse poor Rex; it was not much more than eighteen months since he had been laid low by an archer who sometimes touches his arrow with a subtle, lingering poison. The disappointment of a youthful passion has effects as incalculable as those of small-pox which may make one person plain and a genius, another less plain and more foolish, another plain without detriment to his folly, and leave perhaps the majority without obvious change. Everything depends--not on the mere fact of disappointment, but--on the nature affected and the force that stirs it. 
Excuse poor Rex; it was only eighteen months since he had been laid low by an archer who sometimes touches his arrow with a subtle, lingering poison, which affects each nature differently. 