Born and raised within the shelter of old traditions, aristocratic in the best sense, William Alexander Percy
was brought face to face with the convulsions of a changing world. Lanterns on the Levee is his memorial to the
South of his youth and young manhood, a gentle and verdant society that had begun to disappear by the time of his
death.
Will Percy lived his life across the brink between two epochs, between the noble South of his forebears and the
volatile, discordant South that was ushered in by the demagogue politicians. Holding to the values of a more honorable
time, he fought the depredations of the modern world in both his public and private lives--as an officer in World
War I and as a leading figure in his Mississippi Delta community; as the heir to his family�s responsibilities
and as a poet. In his lifetime, Will Percy saw honorable men become corrupt and corrupt men gain power; he saw
the values of a gentler era preserved in the lives of people both bumble and rich while at the same time other
good people grew petty and distrustful; he saw hatred and brutality taint a land prided for its grace and civility.
The rare qualities of Lanterns on the Levee lie not in what Will Percy did in his life--although his life was exciting
and varied--but rather in the intimate, honest, and soul-probing record of how he brought himself to contemplate
unflinchingly a new and unstable world. Adding to his portrait of a man and his times, the introduction by Walker
Percy--Will�s nephew and adopted son--recalls the strong character and easy grace of "the most extraordinary man
I have ever known."
Table of Contents
I The Delta
II Delta Folks
III Mur and Nain
IV Mere and Pere
V Playmates
VI A Side-Show Gotterdammerung
VII A Small Boy's Heroes
VIII Learning from Teachers
IX Sewanee
X A Year Abroad
XI At the Harvard Law School
XII The Return of the Native
XIII The Bottom Rail on Top
XIV 1914-1916
XV The Peewee Squad
XVI Getting to the Front
XVII At the Front
XVIII The Ku Klux Klan Comes and Goes
XIX Hell and High Water
XX The Flood of 1927
XXI Planters, Share-Croppers, and Such
XXII Fode
XXIII A Note on Racial Relations
XXIV For the Younger Generation
XXV A Bit of Diary
XXVI Jackdaw in the Garden
XXVII Home
