"Harum-scarum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 him from ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... 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 be carried to bed; Pringle got somehow to his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Peter de Groodt, then, did Dolph turn his steps. On his way thither, he recalled all the tenderness and kindness of his simple-hearted parent, her indulgence of his errors, her blindness to his faults; and then he bethought himself of his own idle, harum-scarum life. "I've been a sad scape-grace," said Dolph, shaking his head sorrowfully. "I've been a complete sink-pocket, that's the truth of it!—But," added he, briskly, and clasping his hands, "only let her live—only let her live—and I'll ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... Captain Codman. "The company has nothing to do with it. As far as I can see it is only the wild plan of a harum-scarum young man. He has no authority. He's doing it for excitement, for an adventure. He doesn't seem to know anything of—of what is going on—and, personally, I think he's mad. He and his friend are the two men who twice drove past your house this ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... of the banquet-hall was going on, Simmons was busying himself putting a new bridge under the strings of his violin, tightening its bow, and testing the condition of his instrument by that see-saw, harum-scarum flourish so common to all virtuosos;—no function of the club was ever complete without music—the men meanwhile settled themselves comfortably in their seats; some occupying their old chairs, others taking possession ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... too, was quite new—a neat blue serge fresh from the dressmaker's hands; her boots were blacked and bright, her stockings guiltless of ventilatory chasms. All this helped to make her a Judy quite different from the harum-scarum one of a few days back, who used to come to breakfast looking as if her clothes had ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... you've made friends 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
... away to town that day you were all absent and met Larry Lamont, my cousin, the only kinsman I have. He was once a harum-scarum lad and did some flying acts for a company I was with, and one day when he was laid off for 'reasons,' I gave him a calling down and advised him to go to an aviation school and learn to fly scientifically. I hadn't heard from him until I saw him at ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... unlike harum-scarum Peace that her sisters wondered, although they attributed it to chagrin over her blunder, and considerately refrained from asking questions. But when they had reached home once more, and were gathered in the ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... say that his cousin agreed heartily to take a part in the adventure, and that he would shortly come up to arrange the details with Rupert. Rupert had met Gerald Dillon before, and knew him to be as wild, adventurous, and harum-scarum a young officer as his cousin Pat; and in half-an-hour's talk the whole matter ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... observed another spectator, "young people should be brought up with reasonable ideas of right and wrong, and prudence; nevertheless, I should not like a son of mine to run harum-scarum through my property, and his own life; and yet one cannot help, when one hears such a brave speech as that from yonder Frenchman just gone out,—I say one cannot help thinking it very fine." "True, true," cried the inquisitor; "you are right, sir; very fine indeed, but too fine to wear; it would ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... story I have," drawled the squire. "Where's that wild harum-scarum Tavia Travers? ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... went in as well. And though Dele was such a harum-scarum sort of girl, she was good to the children and found no end of diversions for them. Nora was a curious, grave little thing, and her large dark eyes in her small, sallow face looked almost uncanny. She devoured fairy stories and knew many of the mythological gods and goddesses. ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... his waywardness and wildness as a youth, and considered that there was no evidence that he was ever dissipated or loose in his life. We may largely discount Harriet Martineau's acid references to Taylor's harum-scarum young men, especially as she romanced about that very wild young man Polidori, Byron's erstwhile physician, who, during his stay in Norwich—1817-8—was ever ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... impossible to be cross or gloomy in his presence. People sometimes wondered how he happened to marry Mrs. Hazeltine, but the reason was plain enough to him. He regarded her with the greatest admiration, feeling that a harum-scarum fellow like himself was most fortunate in having such a wife to keep him straight. He was very proud and fond of her, and quite blind to what others called her managing propensities. Sometimes, indeed, he wondered how she could be so severe in her ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... fox-hunters should have their meeting where the Fabii met; Gell's map of Rome's classic topography be studied, with no other reference than to runs; and Veii be scared in her lofty citadel by the cry of hounds and harum-scarum fellows sweeping along her ravines, are evident improprieties; while the having all one's senses assailed and offended together by the scent of highly-ammoniated bandy-legged fellows in fustian or corduroy, (their necessary satellites,) who inundate street and piazza with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... Those "harum-scarum" expeditions, the Crusades, were perhaps influential in checking piracy, although the rabble that composed the majority of them had as little principle as the worst of the freebooters. From the time that Peter the Hermit set Europe in a blaze, all ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms |
