Tom Taylor (1817–1880) was an English dramatist, public servant and writer. After a brief academic career in English literature and language at University College London in the 1840s, Taylor practised law and became a civil servant. At the same time he became a journalist, most prominently as a contributor to and eventually the editor of the magazine Punch. He also began a theatre career and is now best known as a playwright. With up to one hundred plays staged during his career, both original work and adaptations of French plays, Taylor's output covers a range of genres from farce to melodrama. Most fell into neglect after Taylor's death, but Our American Cousin (1858), which achieved great success in the 19th century, remains famous as the piece that was being performed in the presence of Abraham Lincoln when he was assassinated in 1865. This undated photograph by the studio of Samuel Robert Lock and George C. Whitfield is part of Men of Mark: A Gallery of Contemporary Portraits, a collection published in 1881.Photograph credit: Lock & Whitfield; restored by Adam Cuerden
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It is so terribly sad that I have to explain that the above is a JOKE
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
For unique design and interesting content, I present you with this Excellent User Page Award. –Frater5(talk/con) 16:12, 29 May 2006 (UTC)