Some slanderers accompany their calumnies with a jest, or accentuate them with a witty or amusing speech [such as irony]. This is the greatest cruelty of all, for the slander which might have passed in at one ear and out at the other, is then firmly lodged in the mind of all who hear it. Again, slanders that are prefaced by words of eulogy make more impression on the hearer, just as an arrow flies with more force and penetrates more deeply if the bow be drawn back first. Of such persons David says: “The poison of asps is under their lips” (Ps. xiii. 3).
