"Harum-scarum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the story I have," drawled the squire. "Where's that wild harum-scarum Tavia Travers? She's the ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... in. He was a stout young fellow, dark, with regular but heavy features, close-cropped hair, and moustaches already full-blown. He shook hands with both his friends, and stopped before the picture, looking nonplussed. In reality that harum-scarum style of painting upset him, such was the even balance of his nature, such his reverence as a steady student for the established formulas of art; and it was only his feeling of friendship which, as a rule, prevented ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... he wrote his name, was as merry, harum-scarum, mischief-loving a boy as ever lived. He was fifteen years old, the leader of the Norton boys in all their games, and the originator of most of their schemes for mischief. But Mark's mischief was never of a kind to injure anybody, ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... "Nice of you to say so, but I know better. I'm not a lady. I'm just a harum-scarum, tempery girl that grew up in the hills. If I didn't know it, that wouldn't matter. But I do know it, and so like a little idiot I pity myself because ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... life had been a dare-devil rider. Now, increasing weight led him to prefer buggy to saddle; but his recklessness had not diminished. With the reins in his left hand, he would run his light, two-wheeled trap up any wooded, boulder-strewn hill and down the other side, just as in his harum-scarum days he had set it at felled trees, and, ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... serve her to look after her interests. I wish she had a good husband to help her; but it is my belief, from what I see here, that there is not a young man in the country at all fit for her. She is a good, gentle creature, and were she to wed one of the rollicking, harum-scarum young fellows who are her equals, he would break her heart; and staying at home as she does, she is not likely to meet any others, while even abroad she saw no one to care for, or, at least, no one ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... appeared in tight-fitting trousers, as became Mr. McGuffie's son, but Robertson wore the kilt and never looked anything else but a gentleman, yet his kilt was ever of the shabbiest, and neither had his bonnet any tails. His manners were those of his blood, but a freer and heartier and more harum-scarum fellow never lived. It is a pleasant remembrance, after many years, to see again a group of lads round the big fire in the winter time, and to hear Duncan Robertson read the stirring ballad, "How Horatius kept the bridge in the brave ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... a high sense of honor, Miss Jocelyn. I will relieve you after a time, if you wish me to," and the student of human nature walked away with a peculiar smile. "When I was a harum-scarum boy," he muttered, "a girl with such a face could almost make me worship her. I don't believe boys ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... Billings shook his head a few minutes in thinking over what he had heard of Mrs. Pelham, and wished he might see Ray and make him understand that he thought the place should go to him, but Stannard said, emphatically, that Ray was too harum-scarum for office-work, good as he was in the field. And then came a brief letter from Truscott, cordial and straight to the point as ever. It wound up by saying, "The colonel attributes your hesitation to the fact that you think it ought to go to some man who has served longer with the regiment. We respect ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... Michel or one of the others; and be interested in what I'm doing, and come home tired and sleep without dreaming—why everything is all right. But if you insist on cooping me up!—well, I'm likely to turn out something worse than harum-scarum, that's all!" ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... opinion—if it counts for anything," she persisted, "this harum-scarum state of things is quite as bad for the children as for the birds. I suppose you have a glimmering concern for the boy's future, as ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... "Now, what sort of harum-scarum trick have you got up your sleeve, Jack?" questioned George, uneasily, as the three ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... were harum-scarum," remonstrated Aunt Janet, under this outburst. She did not, however, offer any real objection and they went into ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... will not think it shabby in me, if I seem to wish to throw all the blame on this harum-scarum Guert Ten Eyck. He drew me into both affairs, and into the last, in a ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... almost to impudence. Further, her cheeks were brown, her brief nose freckled, and she did not take the pains with her face that most of the beautiful young women who waited there had so obviously taken. She was a harum-scarum baggage with no proper respect for any one, he decided, especially after the day she had so rudely accosted one of the passing directors. He was a more than usually absorbed director, and with drawn brows would ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... gentleman in a kilt whom his companions designate "the Bourach." Requesting an explanation of the term I am told that "Bourach" is the Gaelic for "through-other," which again is the Scottish synonym for a kind of amalgam of addled and harum-scarum. A jolly tanner observes: "I'll get a compartment to oursels." The reason of the desire for this exclusive accommodation is apparent as soon as we start. A "deck" of cards is produced and a quartette ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... back from almost all New England towns are certain old pastures and clearings, long since run wild, in which the young foxes love to meet and play on moonlight nights, much as rabbits do, though in a less harum-scarum way. When well fed, and therefore in no hurry to hunt, the heart of a young fox turns naturally to such a spot, and to fun and capers. The playground may easily be found by following the tracks after the first snowfall. (The knowledge will not profit you probably ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... name of "Crazy Jane" because of her reckless driving, her harum-scarum ways and her complete ignoring of public opinion. Not a few of the residents of the little New Hampshire village feared that Jane might be brought home after one of her wild drives, with broken ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... my dear. If you were not it would not be well for you to do as you are going to do. If you were giddy and harum-scarum, and devoted to rank and wealth and that sort of thing, it would not be well for you to marry a commoner without fortune. I'm sure Mr Crosbie will excuse me for saying so ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... isn't exactly the kind of boy I want in my store," said Mr. Graham. "He's a harum-scarum sort of boy, and likes to shirk his work. Then I suspect he stops to play on the way when I send him on errands. Yesterday he was five minutes longer than he need to have been in goin' to Sam Dunning's to carry some groceries. Thomas doesn't seem ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... child, this harum-scarum Poppy, but very thoughtless and very curious. She wanted to see every thing, do every thing, and go every where: she feared nothing, and so was continually getting ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... making enough to take care of us, that's all. This afternoon I was over in his office cleaning up his desk,—you know he never does it himself, and even a harum-scarum like me can help it some,—and I saw a lot of things that scared me. Bills and things like that. And it would be hard to talk to daddy about it; I don't think I ever could. And you know he really could make a lot of money if he wanted to; I can tell that from the letters he gets. He doesn't answer ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... history, and had been given her at parting by some special friend. Every one at the fort had made a pet of Captain Dudley's daughter,—the harum-scarum little Ginger,—who would rather dash across the prairies on her pony, like a wild Comanche Indian, than play with the finest doll ever ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... besets the boy! You forget that, all this time, I am as ignorant of your own adventures as is his Majesty's prime minister of navigation Why do I see you, here, a visitor from a royal cruiser, when I thought you were playing the mock pirate? and how came that harum-scarum twig of nobility in possession of so goodly a company, as well as of so ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... the same description, with a harum-scarum devil of a half-bred, making his way at all risks, at a full gallop, as unmanageable in his career as his driver had been in his speculations; dust flying, women sprawling, men bawling, dogs barking, and the multitude continually increasing. Scouts, Scamps, Lords, Loungers and Lacqueys—Coster-mongers ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... maid is an excellent cook and one is very comfortable chez-moi." And often the prospect thus sketched would piquantly allure a client. Nevertheless at intervals she could savour a fashionable restaurant as well as any harum-scarum minx there. Her secret fear was still obesity. She was capable of imagining herself at fat as Marthe—and ruined; for, though a few peculiar amateurs appreciated solidity, the great majority of men did not. However, she was not ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... rocks standing out of the ground in some places, and here and there patches of grass. Sometimes we could see four or five lochs at once, some of them two or three miles long, and down through the middle of the moor came the maddest and most harum-scarum little river that could be imagined. It actually seemed to go out of its way to find rocks to jump over, just as if it was a young calf, and some of the waterfalls were beautiful. All around us was melancholy ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... home and catch something, for it is the only excuse that will serve you. I am not quite sure that it will not be high treason for me to be seen speaking to you.' I tried to get at the rights of it, but he is such a harum-scarum fellow there was no succeeding. Next I met Thorndale, who only bowed and passed on the other side of the street—sign enough how it was with Philip; so I thought it best to go at once to the Captain, and get a rational account of what ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they had counted on since this was the only way Jim Kendric knew of getting back among old friends and old surroundings. There was nothing subtle about him; in all things he was open and forthright and tempestuous. In a man's hardened and buffeted body he had kept the heart of a harum-scarum boy. ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... "Hard work they are," as he once wrote, "but what fit work!" And again: "O, it's a cold house where a dog is the only representative of a child!" Not that dogs were despised; we shall drop across the name of Jack, the harum-scarum Irish terrier, ere we have done; his own dog Plato went up with him daily to his lectures, and still (like other friends) feels the loss and looks visibly for the reappearance of his master; and Martin the cat Fleeming has himself immortalised, to the delight ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... perhaps, think me a terrible harum-scarum fellow to be continually falling in love in this way, but I have a dread of being an old bachelor, and I am now twenty-five ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... 'I didn't mention any names,' said she; 'but I know good driving from harum-scarum, wherever ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... John of Gaunt, between the pillars of the 6th bay of the Choir, was the tomb of WILLIAM HERBERT (1501-1569), first Earl of Pembroke of the second creation, a harum-scarum youth, who settled down into a clever politician, and was high in favour with Henry VIII., who made him an executor of his will, and nominated him one of the Council of twelve for Edward VI. He went through the reign of Mary not without suspicion of disloyalty, but was allowed ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... "Harum-scarum and happy, They frolic the whole night through; Maybe you'll hear them dance, this year (Though ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner
... beginnin' it was Jim Barrett's plan, and it had jest enough risk and devilment in it to suit a harum-scarum young feller like me; so we got five of the boys who had good horses, lumped together all of our money, and rode out to ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... fast Morrell type were losing their influence and ascendency, were being pushed aside to the fringes by the more "solid" elements. Wealth and arrogant dignity were coming into their innings. Formal functions, often on an elaborate scale, were taking the place of the harum-scarum informal parties. There came up some questions of social leadership. In short, social life was developing into the usual game. Lacking other interests, Nan found it amused her to play at it, to contend with the leaders, to ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... beside the doctor was his namesake and neighbor, Philip Lambert. Phil was graduating, himself, this year from the college across the river, a sturdy athlete of some note and a Phi Beta Kappa man as well. Out of a harum-scarum, willful boyhood he had emerged into a finely tempered, steady young manhood. The Dunbury wiseacres who had been wont to shake their heads over Phil's youthful escapades and prophesy a bad end for such a devil-may-care youngster ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... mean? Certainly not, it was most ill-advised, probably some quixotic idea about not wanting to testify against his friend. If you knew the boy you would understand what a hot-headed, harum-scarum person he is. He was my pupil at one time and I grew quite fond of him. He has ability, undoubted ability, but he is a ship without a rudder; he has been drifting ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... brother Jack is as careful of his ship, and everything connected with her, as an old lady is of her best silk gown on a Sunday morning, though any one, to hear him talk, would suppose that he was the most harum-scarum fellow alive, always excepting his old shipmate, Captain Adair. He is, however, staid and steady enough in reality. I was very glad to hear that he got his post rank at the same time as my brother ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... truth,' said Mrs. Harewood, as she sat and fanned herself with her husband's trencher cap, looking more than ever like a frog in a strawberry bed, 'though my Willie is the cleverest boy in the school, little good his cleverness would have done him, and he would have been harum-scarum Bill more than ever, if it were not for Lance. So say his father and brother Jack; so that they will not be for his going to a public school unless Lance were sure ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "A harum-scarum young chief," replied Media, "heir to three islands; he likes nothing better than the sport you now see see ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... Pendlemere with us, and have sent somebody from the village to take him home. There would have been no other way. Remember, though, that I'm responsible for you to your parents, and I really can't allow these harum-scarum tricks. Suppose there ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... in her time poor goody Moore may have met with a Lovelace, or a Belford, or some such vile fellow? My little harum-scarum beauty knows not what strange histories every woman living, who has had the least independence of will, could tell her, were such to be as communicative as she is. But here's the thing—I have given her cause enough of offence; ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... on whose harum-scarum high spirits Mr. Hawbury's hospitality had certainly not produced a sedative effect. "Hear him, doctor! one would think he was ninety! Bed, you drowsy old dormouse! Look at that, and think ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... to spread Rennie had every peck of wheat in the market bought up. He must have coined an enormous profit by this smart transaction; but to him it seemed to matter nothing at all. He was one of the most careless of the harum-scarum sons of Adam, and if he made money easily, so in a like manner did he let it ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... to Sheba, how a dignified minister could care for the companionship of such a harum-scarum little creature as her grandson. She did know the tie that bound them, but their natures were as near akin as the acorn and the oak. In John Jay the man saw his own childhood with all its unanswered questions and dumb, groping ambitions; while the boy, looking up to his "Rev'und ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... home when the nineteenth century was in its teens. He had left behind him a harum-scarum reputation, and, save for his father and mother, but a solitary relative of his own name. When he came back, with coin in pouch, and the story of a life of strange adventure behind him, the old folks had been dead a dozen years, and the solitary cousin, whom he had always ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... life would be true, no study of his personality complete, if it ignored or even glossed over "the mad wild ways of his youthful days" in Denver. He never wearied of telling of the constant succession of harum-scarum pranks that made the Tribune office the storm-centre for all the fun-loving characters in Colorado. Not that Field ever neglected his work or his domestic duties for play, but it was a dull day for Denver when his pen or his restless spirit for mischief did not provide some fresh ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... exist for the benefit of the classes and the governed are to be allowed to exist only by favor of those who govern—curious how good men fail to read the sign of the times. Colonel Tom Talbot's settlement in West Ontario has, by 1832, increased to 50,000 people, and the mad harum-scarum of court days is becoming an old man. Talbot has been a legislative councilor for life, but it is not on record that he ever attended the council in Toronto. Still he views with high disfavor this universal ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut |
