Life
Lawrence worked as a painter and there is speculation that exposure to the chemicals in his paints may have contributed to his derangement. By the early 1830s he was unemployed and had succumbed to the delusion that he was King Richard III of England.
His personality changed dramatically around this point. He was previously conservatively dressed, but now he dressed flamboyantly, and grew a mustache. He gave up his job, saying that he had no need to work as the American government owed him a large sum of money but that President Andrew Jackson was keeping him from receiving it. He also said that when he received the money, he could take up his rightful place as King of England. Lawrence also blamed Jackson for killing his father.
Read more about this topic: Richard Lawrence (failed Assassin)
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Life is the desert, life the solitude,
Death joins us to the great majority.”
—Edward Young (1683–1765)
“To suppose such a thing possible as a society, in which men, who are able and willing to work, cannot support their families, and ought, with a great part of the women, to be compelled to lead a life of celibacy, for fear of having children to be starved; to suppose such a thing possible is monstrous.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)
“I feel a sincere wish indeed to see our government brought back to it’s republican principles, to see that kind of government firmly fixed, to which my whole life has been devoted. I hope we shall now see it so established, as that when I retire, it may be under full security that we are to continue free and happy.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)