Two weeks ago, I visited the Buckley home in Sharon, Conn. Priscilla Buckley, our former managing editor, was hosting a reception for Justin Bernier, a congressional candidate in Connecticut’s fifth district. After the event, I sat down with Miss Buckley to talk about a range of issues: France, the Tea Party, 2012.

One thing I left out of the piece was a sample of her writings from NR’s early days. In 1957, Miss Buckley took aim at Arthur Larson, a speechwriter for President Dwight Eisenhower and a high priest of the New Republicans — yesterday’s RINOS:

That native Washington institution, The Cocktail Party, is déclassé, our Society Editor informs us. This is the year of the Well-Appointed Dinner. To break bread with the Certified Republicans one must nowadays have Culture, be a Conversationalist — preferably trilingual; and if one would dine with the principal architect of New Republicanism, Mr. Arthur Larson himself, one must know all about the Vertical Flute, which is what he plays after dinner. We don’t know a thing about it, we confess, and so would look, in the salon, as though the steward had dragged us in from the highways and the byways, which, New Republicans seem to agree, is where Old Republicans ought to spend their time.

Miss Buckley is as much a delight in person as she is in print. You can read the interview here. Litchfield magazine recently did a profile of the Buckley home, which you can read (with pictures) here.