Everyone Needs a Role Model

I may have found mine:

When someone quoted the Bible to the third Duke of Norfolk, His Grace retorted: "I never read the Scripture nor ever will read it; it was merry in England afore the New Learning came up; yea, I would all things were as hath been in times past." That was in 1540, when New Learning included the notion that a gentleman of rank ought to be literate. The Duke, a true reactionary, was having none of it. It may not be possible to be as reactionary as that nowadays, but that's the gold standard.

Indeed. When one is addicted to reading -- the Bible to be sure, and newspapers, books, magazines, blogs, the backs of cereal boxes -- it is sadly a standard too far. But one does one's best.

(Oh, the quote. That's from the latest number of The American Conservative wherein John Derbyshire reviews "The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin" by one Corey Robin. He didn't like it.)