"Harum-scarum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the ship, and the case of poor Ben set forth in strong colors, several, who would not dream of going themselves, were busy in talking it up to others, who, they thought, might be tempted to accept it; and, at length, a Boston boy, a harum-scarum lad, a great favorite, Harry May, whom we called Harry Bluff, and who did not care what country or ship he was in, if he had clothes enough and money enough,— partly from pity for Ben, and partly from the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... "A harum-scarum young chief," replied Media, "heir to three islands; he likes nothing better than the sport you ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... grumbled the harum-scarum. But she started after the shabby figure of the Latin teacher and caught up with him before Professor Dimp had reached the end of the next block—for Bobby Hargrew had taken the palm in the quarter mile dash at the Girls' ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... is a young fellow now in Melbourne, one Desmond O'Connor, a wild, harum-scarum, but of good stuff. You will find him at Mrs. Tippett's, 102 The Grove, Upper Hawthorn. Look him up, if you still love me, and take him under your care. Find him a place in your office; he has the necessary qualifications. He is a journalist, but I foresee ruin in that line for Desmond. Supply ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... of the sort here, let me tell you," snapped the unreasonable old man. "I can't afford to do business at cost just to please a lot of harum-scarum boys, who want to spend days loafing in the woods when they ought to be earning an ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... interests. No doubt filial affection was excellent in its way, but in fact it was highly questionable whether my father was still at the Court of this German prince; my father had stated that he meant to visit England to obtain an interview with his son, and I might miss him by a harum-scarum chase over Germany. And besides, was I not offending my grandfather and my aunt, to whom I owed so much? He appealed to my warmest feelings on their behalf. This was just the moment, he said, when there ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... great actress even then," he went on. "Colonel King had a beautiful daughter, and he was supposed to have a son—a harum-scarum, reckless lad, who went galloping over the ranges with the cowboys, roped cattle, took part in round-ups, and did all sorts of things like that. This boy was known as Tom King. Colonel King's foreman, Injun Jack, had a grudge against Frank Merriwell and swore to kill him. He found his opportunity ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... woman. He was bidden to take his departure as soon as he liked, but somehow he did not do so. Then Mrs. Poole got her husband to make private inquiries about Miss Nancarrow. Good-natured Jim obeyed her, and had to confess that the report was tolerable enough; the girl was perhaps a little harum-scarum, ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... "having the time of their young sweet lives," Al Torrance observed more than once. The home folks had never before considered these rather harum-scarum boys of so much importance as now that they were in the Navy and becoming real "Old Salts." From Doctor Morgan down to Ikey's youngest brother the relatives and friends of the quartette ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... 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 ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... 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 ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... what boys say, especially such harum-scarum fellows as Ed Johnson," added Mr. Fox. "I shouldn't wonder, now, Grimes, if he and that Piper boy got their tempers up, and tried to spite you, for ordering them out of the shop. They were troublesome, and he had to speak sharp," added Mr. Fox, ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... the harum-scarum fellow is about?" answered the young officer. "He never danced at all, and hardly staid ten minutes in the ballroom: for he soon fell in with his friend Anderson, who is just come up from the country: ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... I'm not one of those harum-scarum sort, who would make up a fight when there's no occasion for it, and as your 'haviour is that of a gentleman, I think it will perhaps be better to shake hands upon it, and forget it altogether. ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... then pelted the passers-by with sheep's heads. They spent the money in the royal treasury like water, and played so many heedless and ruthless boy-tricks that the period of these months of folly was known, long after, as the "Gottorp Fury," because the harum-scarum young brother-in-law, who was the ringleader in all these scrapes, was ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the prompt reply, "he wouldn't care for it." He felt certain harum-scarum Jack would only be bored by the Forest, ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... well say that. What other object can such a scapegrace have? The girl is handsome—well made—can show a pretty foot. How the upper story is furnished matters little. That's blinked in you women if nature has not played the niggard in other respects. Let this harum-scarum but turn over this chapter—ho! ho! his eyes will glisten like Rodney's when he got scent of a French frigate; then up with all sail and at her, and I don't blame him for it— flesh is flesh. I know ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... disjointed, out of joint. troublous[obs3]; riotous &c. (violent) 173. complex &c. 59a. Adv. irregularly &c. adj.; by fits, by fits and snatches, by fits and starts; pellmell; higgledy-piggledy; helter-skelter, harum-scarum; in a ferment; at sixes and sevens, at cross-purposes; upside down &c. 218. Phr. the cart before the horse; <gr/hysteron proteron/gr>[Grk][Grk]; chaos is come again; "the wreck of matter and the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... minister—a hare-brained ancient gentleman, long and light and still active, though his knees were loosened with age, and his voice broke continually in childish trebles—and his lady wife, a heavy, comely dame, without a word to say for herself beyond good-even and good-day. Harum-scarum, clodpole young lairds of the neighbourhood paid him the compliment of a visit. Young Hay of Romanes rode down to call, on his crop-eared pony; young Pringle of Drumanno came up on his bony grey. Hay remained on the hospitable field, and must ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... only too glad when Jennie Bruce spoke to her. She was just a little afraid of Jennie's sharp tongue; and yet she had never been the butt of any of the harum-scarum's jokes. Perhaps Jennie had spared Nancy because the latter was so much alone. The ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... If I can ride all day, or paddle or swim, or go hunting with 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
... They are the foul fungi that fatten on the walls of the public-house; that is all. And I have given them more drink only to see them plan a robbery. Seventy thousand of them in London? Yes. But supposing a few thousands of us, instead of being indifferent, instead of 'exploring' in my harum-scarum way, go to work and try to give these creatures a chance of living human lives? What then? Would Blackey or the girl or the wicked old folk have gone to the bar and eaten away their morality with alcohol if they had not been driven out by the stinking ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... just as certain to be a child's favorite as the others in the famous series. Harum-scarum "Joey" ...
— Three People • Pansy
... a wilfully naughty 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 ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... on such a wild, harum-scarum search as this, eh?" said the doctor, looking at the tall, sun-burnt ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... I was saying," said Aunt Polly, "he warn't BAD, so to say —only mischEEvous. Only just giddy, and harum-scarum, you know. He warn't any more responsible than a colt. HE never meant any harm, and he was the best-hearted boy that ever was"—and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... her lessons were all in black and white. He would not let her see that he did not know what this was, but he was ashamed, and he determined to find out; he determined to get a drawing-book, and learn something about it himself. To his thinking, the room was pretty harum-scarum. There were shawls hung upon the walls, and rugs, and pieces of cloth, which sometimes had half- finished paintings fastened to them; there were paintings standing round the room on the floor, sometimes right side out, and sometimes ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... will ever be welcome here, and I hope that we shall have the young lady with us when he returns," answered Mr Bradshaw. "I will not say the same with regard to her impracticable father, for, between you and I, the farther he is away from her the better. I am no admirer of his wild, harum-scarum schemes, though he is individually a brave and honourable man; and had he not foolishly quarrelled with the authorities at home, he would never have lacked employment under the flag of England, instead of knocking his head against stone walls in quarrels ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... People of the 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 form alliances, to declare war, to assume by ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... him to make some protest to which she could have remained obdurate, she waited for it to come. But nothing did come. Had she turned, she would have seen that he had grown white, that his hands were clenched and his lips compressed after a way he had and that his wild, harum-scarum soul was worked up to an extraordinary intensity; but she didn't turn. She was waiting for him to pick up the ring, creep along behind her, and seize the hand resting on the mantelpiece, according to the ritual she had mentally foreordained. But without stooping ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... the velvet lawn and with an unsatisfied air Mrs. McGregor wheeled about to collect Nell and Tim, who were already tugging at her skirts. She felt as if the events of the past half-hour were a dream. Carl, her harum-scarum son, the catastrophe worker of the family, was the acknowledged friend of Mr. John Coulter, one of the richest and most revered citizens of Baileyville. And more than that he appeared to possess the influence to ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... to do all those sort of things well. Those little things were of more consequence than we supposed." So he goes on, harassing about the way to prosperity, and losing it. With a long head, but somewhat a wrong one—harum-scarum. Why does not his guardian angel look to him? He deserves one—: may be, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... saw that one of the cushions was slipping to one side. She replaced it with a deftness of touch natural to her, yet seemingly incongruous with her harum-scarum ways. Then she settled herself with her back against a tree, facing her ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... bell, the boy turned to go, she beckoned him back to her side. 'Tell my darling Johnnie that I hope he'll come and sit with me this afternoon; only he must be wise and quiet, and not get into one of his harum-scarum moods, or papa ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... was now fast filling up by the arrival of other remarkable characters, among whom were noticed Davy Jones, the distinguished nautical personage, and a rude, carelessly dressed, harum-scarum sort of elderly fellow, known by the nickname of Old Harry. The latter, however, after being shown to a dressing-room, reappeared with his gray hair nicely combed, his clothes brushed, a clean dicky on his neck, and altogether so changed ...
— A Select Party (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... noteworthy fact that many of the featherbrained, harum-scarum captains endeavoured to man their vessels with men who had been trained in north-country colliers. These men were considered not only the best, but the most subordinate in the world. Perhaps this was correct, but I think the west countrymen could claim a good place ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... the party that arrived in the Missisquoi were not very promising-looking boys. They had a wild, harum-scarum appearance and manner, which fully justified the description Captain Vesey had given of them. In a word, they were evidently wild boys; and in this respect they did not differ much ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... 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
... indispensable it was for a barrister to do all those sort of things well. Those little things were of more consequence than we supposed. So he goes on, harassing about the way to prosperity, and losing it. With a long head, but somewhat a wrong one,—harum-scarum. Why does not his guardian angel look to him? He deserves one,—maybe he ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... am not going to say any more," she said, getting up and buttoning her glove. "I will leave you to think it over. All I will say is that, though I only met her yesterday, I can assure you that I am quite confident that this girl is just the sort of harum-scarum, so-called 'modern' girl who is sure some day to involve herself in a really serious scandal. I don't want her to be in a position to drag you into it as well. Yes, Parker, what is it? Is Sir Derek's ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... calculated she might be o' use to ye now, for some, they be sich friends!" said Grandma, making this observation with the most guileless enthusiasm. "And Becky, she wa'n't much brought up, and used to be as wild and harum-scarum as any of 'em; but I allus said that there was a good deal to Becky, after all. Wall, George Olver, he recognized where she was and he went down thar' and found her, and they wa'n't anybody ventured to say a word, and what need? for everybody respec's George Olver, knowin' he's ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... went to her daughter whose faultless apparel and perfection of line were in vivid contrast to Dinah's harum-scarum appearance. ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... 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 betake themselves to ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... truth. But when I get home among my own people, and repeat my lecture there, as I shall do,—with some little additions as to the good things I have found here from which your ears may be spared,—I shall omit this story as I know it will be impossible to make my countrymen believe that a hundred harum-scarum tomboys may ride at their pleasure over every man's land, destroying crops and trampling down fences, going, if their vermin leads them there, with reckless violence into the sweet domestic garden of your country residences; and that no one can either stop them or punish them! ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... landing-place under the bridge, we found the detachments that had gone by road, awaiting us. Joining company, we proceeded together to the park, and set about our picnic in the usual harum-scarum fashion, chasing truant children, losing one another, finding one another, making merry over the most dire mishaps, and enjoying the whole thing hugely—elders, juveniles, and all—from beginning ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... 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 ever ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... harum-scarum trick have you got up your sleeve, Jack?" questioned George, uneasily, as the three gathered in ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the cargo who, they apprehended, would have rather seen them starve than that a bag or two of his cargo should be used for the purpose of saving their lives. That was the impression they had formed. Of course it was a harum-scarum impression, but it gratified them to hold it. The real culprit was the owner of the ship, who had not provided sufficient stores. He had not escaped notice, but the meaner sinner had ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... paying out of my government pay as a soldier. The money dad sent me I spent like water, lent to the boys, threw away. Tell him not to send me any more. Tell him the time has come for Jim Anderson to make good. I've a rich dad and he's the best dad any harum-scarum boy ever had. I'm going to prove more than ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... The handful of harum-scarum fellows who had scaled the heights and planted the flag before long found themselves facing the great Admiral Sir George Rooke himself, on his quarter-deck, Lieutenant Fieldsend and George Fairburn being of the party. The admiral said a few words of commendation; few as they were, they were ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... talk of the dead. Mainly that. And of how they looked & the harum-scarum things they did & said. For there were no cares in that life, no aches & pains, & not time enough in the day (& three-fourths of the night) to work off one's surplus vigor & energy. Of the midnight highway-robbery joke played upon me with revolvers at my head on the windswept ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... you, for I wanted a son so badly, and was fearfully disappointed that you were not a boy. You seemed to understand and did not get mad about it, and I've often wanted you to know that no son could mean to me now what my little harum-scarum daughter means. There has never been a day since you first looked into my eyes that I haven't thanked God for you, and the thing I am most afraid of in life is that you may get sick or not be strong, and that is why I am so glad for you to be in such a charming old place as Twickenham ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... you never may, young man. While in this state I was taken pity on by a woman—a young lady I should call her, for she was of good family, well bred, and well educated—the daughter of some harum-scarum military officer who had got into difficulties, and had his pay sequestrated. He was dead now, and her mother too, and she was as lonely as I. This young creature was staying at the boarding-house where I happened ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... with her," the Colonel said. "She's a harum-scarum lot, I'm afraid, and a sad chatterbox, but she's the right sort of a person for a man with nerves like you! You're looking a ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rate. He made a great phrase with me; but though it keeps down one's weekly bill to get a meal like yon—I declare I wasn't hungry for two days—for all that I'll go very little about him. He'll be the kind that borrows money very fast—one of those harum-scarum ones!" ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... completes the round of my travelling experiences in the far West of England. These newly-added pages are written, I am afraid, in a tone of somewhat boisterous gaiety—which I have not, however, had the heart to subdue, because it is after all the genuine offspring of the "harum-scarum" high spirits of the time. The "Cruise of the Tomtit" was, from first to last, a practical burlesque; and the good-natured reader will, I hope, not think the worse of me, if I beg him to stand on no ceremony ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... his constituents, Sir Charles delivered a very effective general reply to Lord Salisbury's attacks on the Government's European policy. It was a little hard to be blamed for delay in settling difficulties which all sprang from Lord Salisbury's own "harum-scarum hurry" when he was Foreign Minister and Second Plenipotentiary of England. Lord Salisbury might say of the naval demonstration that the Powers might as well have sent "six washing-tubs with flags attached to them." The fact ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... 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, if ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... "Fust-rate! that harum-scarum venter er mine was the best I ever made. She's done waal by me, hes Bewlah; ben a grand good housekeeper, kin kerry on the farm better 'n me, any time, an' is as dutif'l an' lovin' a wife as,—waal, as annything that is extra dutif'l ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott |
