LEWIS BAKER.  "Uncle Will's Garden," in The Percys of Mississippi: 
Politics and Literature in the New South.  Baton Rouge:  Louisiana
State University, 1983.



Lewis Bakers biographical style of writing history is well used in
"Uncle Will's Garden."  He presents with acceptable historical
'accuracy' and with considerable style the person of Will Percy,
retrograde Southern Aristocrat and gentleman.  The work transcends
the pedestrian constraints of schoolbook history and invites the
reader to consider the broader ethical web that ties all men
together.
     Rather than create dialog to support the narrative line, as a
historian like Barbara Tuchman might do, Baker draws (secondarily?)
from interviews with this complex aspirant philosopher-King of the
Plantation.  Baker also draws extensively from the personal
correspondence of Mr Percy, with over a third of the footnoted
items refer to personal writings or conversations.  Here Mr Percy's
literary aspirations and Mr Baker's style seem made for each other: 
the subjects desire to be a Southern man of letters compliment the
author's heavy reliance on quotes and on the thought life of the
subject.
     The very title "Uncle Will's Garden" is brilliantly selected. 
It sets the bucolic and paternalistic tone that seems to explain
most completely the motivations of Will Percy.  As Baker writes
beautifully, 
     "It was a garden . . . where life could unfold its
     natural beauty undisturbed, a garden where the rich brown
     earth became white [with cotton] at the behest of
     fabulous black Pan-like creatures who were themselves the
     garden's greatest marvel (156)."
His declining (socially and, occasionally, financially) plantation
becomes a micro-universe, an antebellum Palace of Diocletian where
the emperor-god makes decisions that concern the social fabric of
his estate.  
     Will's affection for his cotton-farming negroes was obvious to
all who spent any time around him.  At the same time, however,
there is a dark paternalistic side to his assistance, and the
sensitive and unflinching revelation of this dark side is what
propels Baker's biographical history into the realm of great
history.  Will's condescending attitudes about "the simple charm of
blacks"  who were "'fundamentally and mysteriously different from
white people (158)'" make the reader reconsider the nature (or
existence) of altruism.  A contemporary notes that ". . . Percy
loved the Negroes as another gentleman might love dogs . . .(157)."
     Here is illustrated the painful ethical dilemmas confronting
the man who desires to the pharonic role.  The educated
philosopher-king must do what is best for is people, and what is
best is not always painless.  For example, Percy wrestles with the
issues of human employment as opposed to labor-saving (and labor-
eliminating) technology.   He puts himself in the position of being
responsible for the physical, spiritual, and emotional health of a
people he truly understands very little (154).  
     Baker's biographical history is not great because he chose
Percy as some Carlylian 'great man.'  Rather, this work is
successful as straight history, and comes into greatness because
the insightful analysis of a complex figure invites the reader to
consider the eternal, human ramifications of leading a life like
the one investigated here.  Percy wondered once, referring to his
sons, "what else could I teach them other than what I myself had
learned (153)?"  The answer is this:  when an 'observed life' is
studied by a talented and insightful biographer the teaching can go
far beyond the teacher's intended audience of sons.  
     
http://www.mousetrap.net/~mouse/uta/