If misery and madness abound in stage life, so also does an indomitable cheerfulness, always at least a cheerful countenance.
Oldys says, a propos of the restoration of the stage at that time:--
The Guardian
Michael was taken off stage thoroughly throttled by one of the stage-hands, and the curtain arose on the full set--full, save for the one empty chair.
"Never mind, honey," his imperturbable wife assured him in a stage whisper.
Michael Brother of Jerry
One arm-chair was allowed on the stage; and into that arm-chair Miss Marrable sank, preparatory to a fit of hysterics.
Here Miss Garth seized her opportunity, and addressed the stage loudly from the pit.
No Name
Pete did not pay much attention to the progress of events upon the
stage. He was drinking beer and watching Maggie.
Maggie A Girl of the Streets
So the real rain was turned on and began to descend in gossamer lances to the mimic flower-beds and gravel walks of the stage. The richly dressed actresses and actors tripped about singing bravely and pretending not to mind it.
The mimic royalty on the stage, with their soaked satins clinging to their bodies, slopped about ankle-deep in water, warbling their sweetest and best, the fiddlers under the eaves of the state sawed away for dear life, with the cold overflow spouting down the backs of their necks, and the dry and happy King sat in his lofty box and wore his gloves to ribbons applauding.
Tramp Abroad
According to this view, the chance of discovering in a formation in any one country all the early stages of transition between any two forms, is small, for the successive changes are supposed to have been local or confined to some one spot.
We ought only to look for a few links, some more closely, some more distantly related to each other; and these links, let them be ever so close, if found in different stages of the same formation, would, by most palaeontologists, be ranked as distinct species.
The Origin of Species
"It's so slippery and shiny down here, and the
stage is so much too big for me, that I rattle round in it till I'm 'most black and blue.
Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm
In the latter case each play might remain all day at a particular station and be continuously repeated as the crowd moved slowly by; but more often it was the, spectators who remained, and the plays, mounted on movable
stages, the 'pageant'-wagons, were drawn in turn by the guild-apprentices from one station to another.
A History of English Literature
In many successive visits we came to know his
stage well--the purple semicircle of hills, the slim trees leaning over houses, the yellow sands, the streaming green of ravines.
Tales of Unrest
Well, the fireman in question, who had gone to make a round of inspection in the cellars and who, it seems, had ventured a little farther than usual, suddenly reappeared on the
stage, pale, scared, trembling, with his eyes starting out of his head, and practically fainted in the arms of the proud mother of little Jammes.[1] And why?
Phantom of the Opera