( 125 ) 
It will be noted that the Latin rodere vitam suggests the English 
chillingly realistic term— bach-biting. 
Dear Header, number, if you can, all the benefits —both spiritual 
and temporal—you may derive, by abstaining from Detraction, under each 
of its forms, whether coarse or subtle. 
b^emloct^. 
An umbelliferous plant of the genus Gonium, the most common 
species of which is C. macalatum .* It has active properties which fre¬ 
quently render it poisonous, but it is employed in medicine for its narcotic 
qualities. 
Slander, Taking the Form of Wit. 
Slander that takes the form of wit is more cruel than all others; 
for, as Hemlock is not in itself a very speedy poison, but rather slow, and 
one for which it is easy to find a remedy, but, when taken with wine, it is 
beyond all remedy; so slander, which of itself would go in at one ear and 
out at the other, fixes itself firmly in the minds of the listeners, when it is 
presented to them through some keen and sprightly saying. “They have,” 
to use the words of St. Francis de Sales, “the poison of asps upon their 
lips. The asp gives an almost imperceptible sting, and the poison pro¬ 
duces a pleasing irritation which causes the heart to open and receive the 
venom, against which there is no longer any remedy.” 
*The potion of hemlock administered to Socrates and others is thought to have been a 
decoction of Gicuta virosa, or water hemlock. 
