Foote later became a novelist and historian whose work greatly influenced Percy. His three-volume history of the Civil War is considered one of the definitive chronicles of that conflict.
Foote and Percy both attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There the two undergraduates argued the merits of racial segregation. At the time, Percy favored the policy of separation of the races as true to the traditions of the South. The socially progressive Foote opposed the practice as backward and unfair. Percy was moved by Foote's argument and moderated his views over time. Percy also aspired to match Foote's literary prowess, with embarrassing results. He flunked his placement exam in English composition when he copied the style of William Faulkner.
Life-Changing Illness
After graduating from college, Percy decided to embark on a medical career. He enrolled at Columbia University's medical school. Upon completing his education, he accepted an internship at New York's Bellevue Hospital. There Percy contracted tuberculosis. He spent most of the next four years recuperating at the Trudeau Sanitorium on Saranac Lake in the Adirondack Mountains of New York and in Wallingford, Connecticut. During this period of reflection, Percy began to question the ability of science to explain the basic mysteries of human existence.
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