"Happy-go-lucky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... quite a crowd, almost a dozen young people to feed, the baskets seemed to disgorge enough for twenty. But then they were Happy-Go-Lucky baskets! ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... perceived principles in the books themselves. A man does not suddenly, and by mere blind instinct, avoid such a pitfall as that of incongruous speech and manners, which has been noticed above. It is not mere happy-go-lucky blundering which makes him invariably decline another into which people still fall—the selection of historical personages of the first importance, and elaborately known, for the central figures of his ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... of it," I replied. "For half-a-guinea you can cast a camera upon the world, but have you given a moment's consideration to that camera's means of support? No, I thought not. One more proof of the happy-go-lucky spirit of the present day. Yet you know that a camera has to be fed on plates, that it consumes quantities of poisonous acids, and expresses itself on reams of paper. It is altogether a desperate and spendthrift character. On whom do you suppose ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... in the class they sprang from. Though this is not always strictly true, since a good many of them began life higher up in the world than they are now. Still I prefer them to the pepper-and-salt mixture which has been sent out under that happy-go-lucky process—free immigration. When the colonies were so badly in want of population, they could not stop to pick and choose. Hence a large influx of loafers, men who, without any positive vice, will do anything rather than a hard day's work, and who come out under the impression ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... life whose exterior is apparently one of misery; and it was this side which she determined to portray. Murillo's happy beggar boys were her ideal; Hogarth's work also commanded her admiration. Following in the footsteps of these great predecessors, she sought for her models "the merry, reckless, happy-go-lucky urchin; the tomboy girl; and the plump, untidy mother, dancing and tossing her ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... United States were run for ten years or more on an anti-monopoly plan. The tracks were free to all. Any one who owned a cart with flanged wheels could drive it on the rails and compete with the locomotives. There was a happy-go-lucky jumble of trains and wagons, all held back by the slowest team; and this continued on some railways until as late as 1857. By that time the people saw that com-petition on a railway track was absurd. They ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... to run off and hide in the hay loft, or in any other outlandish place; but when, after all kinds of calls, and a thorough search of the premises, she failed to be located, there was reasonable alarm among the campers. The Hays girls from Camp Happy-go-Lucky, had joined the party that intended going into the deep woods, so they, too, aided ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... were such a loud, noisy, happy-go-lucky pack, that they completely overpowered a delicate, sensitive boy. Moreover, I detested the life there—the roughness and unrefinement of it all." And Cecil's eyes filled with tears at the mere remembrance of his ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... the Great Indian Desert upon the proper date, as I had promised, and the night Mail set me down at Marwar Junction, where a funny little, happy-go-lucky, native-managed railway runs to Jodhpore. The Bombay Mail from Delhi makes a short halt at Marwar. She arrived as I got in, and I had just time to hurry to her platform and go down the carriages. There was only one Second-class on the train. I slipped ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... a ticklish situation. Even the "Kid," with his careless, happy-go-lucky mind, would have admitted that; but as time passed without bringing a break in the monotony of waiting, we began to feel restless. The tension was still great, but the first sense of apprehension ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... talked so cleverly, and had been to college. Arna was going to send Peggy to college, too—it was so good of Arna! But for all Peggy's admiration for Arna, it was Mabel, the eldest sister, who was the more approachable. Mabel did not pretend even to as much learning as Peggy had herself; she was happy-go-lucky and sweet-tempered. Then her husband was a great jolly fellow, with whom it was impossible to be shy, and the babies—there never were such cunning babies, Peggy thought. Just here her niece gave her a particularly ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... savings of the past were accumulated, after all, by comparatively few of the workers; not by the many, who lived from hand to mouth, happy-go-lucky, spending and enjoying in time of abundance, suffering in time of poverty and stress, making no provision even for their own future, still less recognizing any duty to their country or to posterity to produce ...
— Creating Capital - Money-making as an aim in business • Frederick L. Lipman
... importance, it had put a row of wrinkles on her girlish forehead. At fifteen she seemed much older than Percy at sixteen. No one ever dreamt of taking Percy seriously; he was one of those jolly, easy-going, happy-go-lucky, unreliable people who saunter through life with no other aim than to amuse themselves at all costs. To depend upon him was like trusting to a boat without a bottom. Though nominally the eldest, he had little more sense of responsibility than Ernie, the youngest. ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... cast my lot with the Army for life, and so, I trust, have most of you enlisted men. Therefore we all belong together, though not all can be officers. For that matter, I imagine there are a good many men in the ranks of our battalion who wouldn't care to be officers. Many soldiers are of a happy-go-lucky type, and wouldn't care to burden themselves with an officer's responsibilities. Yet I certainly want to be, as far as good discipline will permit, one of the crowd along with all good, staunch and loyal soldiers, whatever their grades of ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... a man of happy-go-lucky disposition, would shrug his shoulders and laugh. But when it came to choosing a profession for the two boys, he did not hesitate. Joseph, the brow-beaten, should become a priest, he said, while Napoleon must study soldiering—which decision suited ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... entirely different type. Big, husky, happy-go-lucky—a poor student but a right jolly companion; a fellow who could pitch into any kind of sport and play an uncommonly good game at almost anything. More than that, he could rattle off ragtime untiringly and his nimble fingers could catch ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... turning, had thrust her moist little hand into Lady O'Gara's, warm from her muff. Dear friendly thing! Lady O'Gara had brought her back in triumph to Castle Talbot, feeling that she could never do enough to make up to the child for forsaking for her that long family, happy and happy-go-lucky. Eileen had become conventional in her growing-up, not much like the others, who frolicked like puppies and grew up pretty well at ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... Island we overtook two scows which had preceded us from The Landing and whose crews had waited here to assist in the transport. It gave us opportunity to observe these sixty representative half-breeds from Lac la Biche. Tall, strong, happy-go-lucky, with no sordid strain in their make-up, they are fellows that one cannot help feeling sympathy for. A natural link between the East and the West, the South of Canada and the North, they have bridged over the animosity and awkwardness with which the ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... seen that the course of an only child is not so smooth as one of many children may think; every action of the former assumes such prominence that it is examined and cross-examined, and very often sent to Coventry; whereas, in a large family, the happy-go-lucky offspring has his little light dimmed, and therefore less remarked, ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... I'd soon hear of the L—— episode. But these prophetic bones of mine told me there was trouble ahead. And I felt so forsaken and desolate in spirit that when Duncan whirled me out to Westbury, in a hired motor-car, to see the Great Neck First defeated by the Meadow Brook Hunters, I went with the happy-go-lucky glee of a truant who doesn't give a hang what happens. Dinky-Dunk was interested in polo ponies, which, he explained to me, are not a particular breed but just come along by accident—for he'd bred and sold mounts to ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... proper moment, and goes on delivering himself of journalistic stock-phrases which he knows will move those who would be left unmoved were the right word spoken. There is nothing of this in the melody of the second movement. Its ease is matched by its poignancy: the very happy-go-lucky swing of it adds to its poignancy; and the continuation—another instance of the untamed Slav under the influence of the most finished culture—has a wild beauty, and at the same time communicates the emotion more clearly than speech could. The mere fact that it is written in five-four time ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... fruit, just as a pig is managed, if one wishes quick returns. To plant a tree and leave it to the tenderness of nature, with only occasional attention, is to make the heart sick, for it is certain to prove a case of hope deferred. In the fulness of time the tree and "happy-go-lucky" nature will prove themselves equal to the development of fruit; but they will be slow in doing it. It is quite as well for the tree, and greatly to the advantage of the horticulturist, to cut two or three years out of this unprofitable time. All that is necessary to accomplish ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... Of a happy-go-lucky disposition, of a temperament more pugnacious than military, Lieutenant Feraud had been content to give and receive blows for sheer love of armed strife and without much thought of advancement. But after this disgusting experience an urgent desire of promotion sprang up in his breast. ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... on their errand of charity in high glee; but Jim returned from the expedition with a face and air of such portentous gravity, so different from his usual happy-go-lucky bearing, that Milly was moved to ask if any thing ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... how about boys? Active, noisy, happy-go-lucky boys? Boys that smash windows, and yell, and tear their clothes on barbed-wire fences? ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... Richard (the Second, not the Third) were his best parts, perhaps because in them his beautiful diction had full scope and his limitations were not noticeable. But it is more as a stage reformer than as an actor that he will be remembered. The old happy-go-lucky way of staging plays, with its sublime indifference to correctness of detail and its utter disregard of archaeology, had received its first blow from Kemble and Macready, but Charles Kean gave it much harder knocks and went further than either of ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... nonsense, get out into the open air!" or "Cheer up, old fellow, you'll be all right erelong, if you will only drop your morbidness!" But in all seriousness, can such bald animal talk as that be treated as a rational answer? To ascribe religious value to mere happy-go-lucky contentment with one's brief chance at natural good is but the very consecration of forgetfulness and superficiality. Our troubles lie indeed too deep for THAT cure. The fact that we CAN die, that we CAN be ill at all, is what perplexes us; the fact that we now for a moment live ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... I had my water-bottle filled; then the bread rations were served out with tinned herrings. Obtaining my allowance, I stowed it away in my knapsack, rolled up my blanket and fixed it on my back, and was ready. Then the "Fall in" was sounded. What a happy-go-lucky lot! No one would have thought these men were going into battle, and that many of them would probably not return. This, unfortunately, turned out to be only ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... discipline and general unruliness—all except some of the Indians, and those, he must say, were well-trained—fine fellows and good soldiers. One could surmise the workings of his mind as one thought of the average happy-go-lucky Tommy Atkins, and then came across one of those tall, straight, hawk-eyed Sikhs and saw him snap his heels together and his arms to his sides and stand there ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... gentleman in question, August Frohlich, seems to have been a little more fortunate in that respect, for Frohlich in German means "merry," and I have yet to find a man who is more devil-may-care or happy-go-lucky, in spite of all his family responsibilities, than ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... were cast in somewhat of a merry mould, and it was impossible to be in their company long without partaking of their happy-go-lucky spirit. ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... would have made friends of every peasant they met, every fellow traveler on the road, and taught Ruskin in turn a good bit about humdrum, picturesque mankind. And he would have made him laugh! Possibly you think it incongruous, impossible, the picture of happy-go-lucky, ridiculous Bobbie, with his slang and his grin and his outlook on life, and Ruskin, the great critic, the master of style, the intellectual giant. But then you reckon without Bobbie's quality of Penguinity, and without ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... first picture they saw these Doasyoulikes living in the land of Readymade, at the foot of the Happy-go-lucky Mountains, where flapdoodle [Footnote: Flapdoodle is the food on which fools are supposed to be fed.] grows wild; and if you want to know what that is, you must read Peter Simple. [Footnote: Peter Simple is a novel ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... was by inheritance a handsome young fellow, and as he turned now to his companion, something in his countenance gave it a manliness not usual to his happy-go-lucky expression. But the same unpenetrable something beyond which no one could see was always on his face when Jo ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... an English country road," thought I, "a sociably inclined, happy-go-lucky, out-for-pleasure English country road, one might expect something of it. On an English country road this would be the psychological moment for the appearance of a blond god, in gray tweed. What a delightful ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... for the holidays are apt to turn a house upside down, and it was fortunate for Mrs. Fleming that she had an easy-going and happy-go-lucky disposition, and could view with comparative equanimity the chaos that reigned in the schoolroom. To Diana it was delightful; she preferred a floor littered with shavings, a table spread with paints, plasticine modelling-clay, and other descriptions of mess, and chairs encumbered ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... thought it all over. But Jane and I can keep on in the old way a little longer. Scanty and happy-go-lucky, but, on the whole, comfortable." He was silent a while, and then in a cautious whisper said, "I'll explain to you, Bruce. I might have made Jane's life easier if I had worked. I know that. I know our friends look on me as a lazy, selfish dog, a dead weight on the child. But—you ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... she might really do that crazy stunt; and he was afraid the boss might return from lunch any second, and catch her doing it and blame HIM! Yes, Arthur Simpson was afraid; and Missy's blood sang at the spectacle of happy-go-lucky Arthur reduced ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... these sharp sayings of Larry Geohegan in the same happy-go-lucky spirit in which they were uttered. No one had more friends and fewer enemies than the tall boy; because he was generous to a fault, humorous in his remarks, and the life of the camp when out ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... the Meum and Tuum in the following year. But this fragment is important, in that it strikes a note of warning, which had to be repeated again and again during the partnership between the poet and the fisherman. Posh was happy-go-lucky in his accounts. I believe he was perfectly honest in intention, but he did not understand the scrupulosity in book-keeping which his partner thought essential to ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... there was nothing I could do; one might as well have tried to stop a hurricane by blowing one's breath. Carpenter had wanted martyrdom, and now he was going to get it—of the peculiar kind and in the peculiar fashion of our free and independent and happy-go-lucky land. We have had many agitators and disturbers of our self-satisfaction, and they have all "got theirs," in one form or another; but there had never been one who had done quite so much to make himself odious as this "Bolsheviki prophet," ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... he was casting a reflection on his son, "I wish my personal means were larger, so I could give Bertram enough and leave Sandymere to you; then I'd know the place would be in good hands. On the surface, you're a happy-go-lucky fellow, but that's deceptive. In reality, you have a surprising grip of things—however, you know my opinion of you. But you won't go ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... here, if she is never to feel serious? Of course she is to have very thoughtful hours! The merely gay, happy-go-lucky kind of a girl is not the most helpful, nor the most valuable. There is very deep happiness sometimes in thoughtfulness,—do you not know it? What makes you quiet when you row in and out of the shadow-filled coves along the river-border, ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... her mother's opinion was by far the most difficult to manage of the whole flock. All the wild Irish blood of the family seemed to have settled in her; the high spirits, the fire, the pride, the quick temper, the impatience of control, the happy-go-lucky, idle, irresponsible ways of a long line of hot-headed ancestors had skipped a generation or two, and, as if they had been bottling themselves up during the interval, had reappeared with renewed force in this particular specimen of the ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... said to you before," he remarked. "You are the most happy-go-lucky of the nations. Did ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... there a tiny islet graceful with tall palms. Arnold Jackson's house stood on a little hill and only a path led to it, so they unharnessed the mare and tied her to a tree, leaving the trap by the side of the road. To Bateman it seemed a happy-go-lucky way of doing things. But when they went up to the house they were met by a tall, handsome native woman, no longer young, with whom Edward cordially shook hands. He ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... and strength, standing on a globe with outstretched arms, and in his hands were shackles of great size. Rising gracefully from the earth, immediately in front of the giant, was an airman seated in a modern flying-machine, and on his face was a happy-go-lucky look as though he were delighting in the duel between him and the giant. The artist had drawn the picture so skilfully that one could imagine the huge, knotted fingers grasping the shackles were itching to bring the airman within their clutch. ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... I have been told that I am happy-go-lucky and sort of a cheerful idiot, but no person ever told me that I'm sensible. Well, don't you forget me when you get to be ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... bed, sleep did not long detain him, for, in his own happy-go-lucky, troubadour sort of life, he was one of the most occupied of men even in this great, hurrying, bustling capital of the world. As soon as he had donned his dressing-gown and come into the sitting-room, ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... Everything is peaceful. The sound of the shipyard axes and hammers can be heard for miles over the quiet waters of the bay. In the sunny lane which follows the line of the shore, and along which a few shops struggle in happy-go-lucky disorder, may be heard the voices and noises of the workers at their work. Water gurgling about the stanchions of the docks, the whistle of some fisherman as he dawdles over his nets, or puts his fish ashore, the whirr of the ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... and what it was he could not for the life of him make out. To any one familiar with Fisher major's business—or, rather, unbusiness—habits, there was nothing wonderful in that. He was happy-go-lucky in all his dealings. He could receive a subscription one day, and only remember, in a panic, to enter it a week after. His money he kept all over the place; some in his desk, some in the cash-box, some in the drawer of his inkstand. He had a vague idea ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... he was one of those happy-go-lucky fellows that didn't bother himself about anything he didn't see or run against. I don't think it ever troubled him. It was the only bad thing he'd ever been in. He'd been drawn in against his will, and I think he ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... food was good enough, and sufficient, and the waiter and the maid-servant cheerful and bustling. Everything felt happy-go-lucky and informal, there was no particular atmosphere. Nobody put on any airs, because nobody in the Nardini took any notice if they did. The little ducal dog yapped, the ducal son shouted, the waiter ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... Happy-Go-Lucky Bobby Coon sat on the edge of the Laughing Brook just as round, red Mr. Sun popped up from behind the Purple Hills and Old Mother West Wind turned all her Merry Little Breezes out to romp ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... Frye's attributes were so obnoxious to him as to be simply repulsive. At college he had never indulged in much "larking," and just why the bond of friendship between himself and the good-natured, self-indulgent, happy-go-lucky classmate, Frank Nason, had been cemented is hard to explain, except upon the theory of the attraction of opposites. When, a few days later, that young man appeared at the office just before closing time, and suggested they "go out for a night's racket," as he phrased ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... a host of other witnesses if we like, among them cranky, happy-go-lucky Fletcher Bartlett, who has led forlorn hopes in former years. Court proceedings make tiresome reading, and if those who have been over ours have not arrived at some notion of the simple and innocent method of the new Era of politics note dawning—they never will. Nothing proved. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in the old Canadian city presented themselves unasked; the maple-foliage, incredibly dense and verdant, the shabby, comfortable houses behind the trees, and the homely, happy-go-lucky people who lived in the houses and sprayed their lawns on summer evenings; friendly people, like people everywhere prone to laughter and averse to thought. "People are so foolish and likeable, it's amazing!" thought Stonor, visualizing his ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... amusing, and a little pathetic too, to watch the shy Roberta expand in the genial, happy-go-lucky atmosphere of the Wales household. A lonely, motherless child brought up by a father who loved her dearly, treated her as an equal, and was too absorbed in his own affairs to realize that she needed any companionship ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... weeks Marcy Gray would have lived in a fever of suspense had it not been for the presence of courageous, happy-go-lucky sailor Jack. He could not for a moment forget the letters which, at Captain Beardsley's request, he had delivered to Colonel Shelby and the rest. Did they convey to those who received them the information that Beardsley no longer believed ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... At last Frank Hapgood—"Happy-go-lucky"—sat up in desperation, flung his pillow on the floor, got out of bed deliberately and sat down on it. Nine other pillows, nine other white-robed figures solemnly followed suit. Said Harry Eveleth, "Fellows, I've tried to do ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... water. The boy had dropped down to the bottom of the craft. His hands were busy arranging clothes, or tackle, and his lusty voice again rang out to the glory of "Napoli, bella Napoli." There was something infectious in his happy-go-lucky light-heartedness. Vere smiled as she listened, but there was a wistfulness in her heart. At that moment a very common desire of young and vigorous girls assailed her—the desire to be a boy; not a boy born of rich parents, destined to the idle, ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... them all, Allyn McAlister, aged fifteen, to spell his moods with a capital M. His father was wont to say that Allyn was a mixture of two people, of two nameless, far-off ancestors. For days at a time, he was a merry, happy-go-lucky boy. Then, for some slight cause or for no cause at all, he retired within himself for a space when he remained dumb and glowered at the rest of the world morosely. Then he roused himself and emerged from his self-absorption into a frank ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... nose of Richard Mivane very coy, the visitor saw no reason why they should not please themselves. The stone-flagged hearth extended half across the room, and sprawling upon it in frowsy disorder was a bevy of children of all ages, as fat as pigs and as happy-go-lucky. He had hardly seated himself, having stepped about carefully among their chubby fingers and toes lest a crushing disaster supervene, than he regretted his choice of a confidant. He had his own, unsuspected sensitiveness, which was suddenly jarred when the ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... on as absolutely secure; and since it is wholly impossible that the Committee's regulations could be so strict as to ensure this result without imposing limits that would have the effect of smothering enterprise, the effect of any such attempt would be to encourage the public to pursue a happy-go-lucky system of investing, and then to blame the Stock Exchange if ever it found that it had made a mistake and had indulged in speculation when it flattered itself that it was investing. The whole question bristles with difficulties, ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... the paper, that made me heart-sick; and then the rush and fight and scramble to be first, to beat the other man. Probably I am too squeamish. I saw classmates and college friends diving into it, bound to come out ahead, dear old, honest, frank fellows, who had been so happy-go-lucky and kind and gay, growing too busy to meet and be good to any man who couldn't be good to them, asking (more delicately) the eternal question, 'What does it get me?' You might think I bad-met with unkindness; but it was not so; it was the other way ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... big green lily-pad in the Smiling Pool and shook his head reprovingly at Peter Rabbit. Peter is such a happy-go-lucky little fellow that he never thinks of anything but the good time he can have in the present. He never looks ahead to the future. So of course Peter seldom worries. If the sun shines to-day, Peter takes it for granted that it will shine to-morrow; ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... place such a spasm of house-cleaning need excite no remark, but among the happy-go-lucky natives of the north it is portentous. Clearly a ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... Thus the three men sat on the front bench with their legs thrust through between seat and back, while the three women sat in dignity and comfort on the fourth bench. Susan thought the dinner by no means justified Miss Anstruther's pessimism. It was good in itself, and the better for being in this happy-go-lucky way, in this happy-go-lucky company. Once they got started, all the grouchiness disappeared. Susan, young and optimistic and determined to be pleased, soon became accustomed to the looks of her new companions—that matter of mere exterior ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... thatched. They examined his meadows, and saw wisps of hay lying about, evidence of neglect; the fields had not been properly raked. His ploughed fields were full of weeds, and not half worked enough. His labourers had acquired a happy-go-lucky style, and did their work anyhow or not at all, having no one to look after them. So, clearly, it was not Frank's good farming that made him so rich, and enabled him to take so high ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... feminine intrigue, and trust cheerfully to the homesickness and essential modesty of its influential people, and the simpler patriotism of its colonial dependencies when it comes at last to the bloody and wearisome business of "muddling through." But these days of the happy-go-lucky optimist are near their end. War is being drawn into the field of the exact sciences. Every additional weapon, every new complication of the art of war, intensifies the need of deliberate preparation, and darkens the outlook of a nation of amateurs. Warfare in the future, on sea or land alike, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... them now, head up, smiling, and happy-go-lucky. "Bertrand, here comes Johnnie. Give him the apples and let him distribute them. Poor boy! I'm sorry he's going; he's ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... of incident which appeals to the popular mind, though his conclusion may cause a shock to those who think that our divorce-laws are in need of reform. In the matter of style Mr. SLADEN is content with something short of perfection. "It was easier for her to forgive a man, with his happy-go-lucky nature, for getting into trouble, than to forgive his getting out again by not being sufficiently careful not to add to the other person's misfortune." For myself, I do not find it so easy to forgive these happy-go-lucky methods in a writer who ought to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... me, I was not only of a contented nature, but so happy— and also so happy-go-lucky—that I was not the very least worried by the opinion of my educational superiors. I should have been genuinely pleased to have pleased them, but as I had clearly failed in that, I did not trouble about it further. ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... the coast of Normandy. I call 'making daubs' that wandering about, with a bag on one's back, from mountain to mountain, under the pretext of studying and of sketching nature. I know nothing more enjoyable than that happy-go-lucky wandering life, in which you are perfectly free; without shackles of any kind, without care, without preoccupation, without thought even of to-morrow. You go in any direction you please, without any guide save your fancy, without any counselor save your eyes. ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... life extremely interesting. They were cheery, happy-go-lucky youngsters, with an immense capacity for enjoyment; and Aunt Margaret, while much too shrewd an old lady to spoil children, delighted in giving them a good time. They found plenty of friends in the little English community in Paris, as well as among their French neighbours. Paris itself ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... speech. We speak of millions of people as if they were one. Of course, a nation is not one kind of person; it is composed of many kinds of persons. These persons are diverse in character. All Scotchmen are not canny, nor all Irishmen happy-go-lucky. Those who know a great many Chinamen are acquainted with those who are idealists with little taste for plodding industry. It is only the outsider who is greatly impressed by the family resemblance. To the more analytic mind of the parent each child is, in a most remarkable ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... teachers. They spoke pleasantly to one another. I heard no nagging or scolding. I saw no one sulking or pouting or in bad temper. And yet there was every evidence of respect and obedience on the part of the pupils. There was none of that happy-go-lucky comradeship which I have sometimes seen in other modern schools, and which leads the pupil to understand that his teacher is there to gain his interest, not to command his respectful attention. Pupils were too busy with ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... perceive that he was casting a reflection on his son, "I wish my personal means were larger, so that I could give Bertram enough and leave Sandymere to you; then I'd know the place would be in good hands. On the surface, you're a happy-go-lucky fellow; but that's deceptive. In reality, you have a surprising grip of things—however, you know my opinion of you. But you won't ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... he and Elaine had been good friends. They had laughed and joked and worked together in a care-free, happy-go-lucky fashion. The arrival of Mr. Perkins and his sudden admiration of Elaine had crystallised the situation. Dick knew now what caused the violent antics of his heart—a peaceful and well-behaved organ which had never before been so disturbed by ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... evil fumes would evaporate, and daylight re-enter Susy's soul; yet she felt that the old poison was slowly insinuating itself into her system. To dispel it she decided one day to look up Grace Fulmer. She was curious to know how the happy-go-lucky companion of Fulmer's evil days was bearing the weight of his prosperity, and she vaguely felt that it would be refreshing to see some one who had never ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... my girlish days was of a careless, happy-go-lucky housewife, who, upon the arrival of unexpected guests, told her maid "not to bother about changing the cloth, but to set plates and dishes so as ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... Barton seemed such a happy-go-lucky, casual sort of person. The gentlemanly tramp was not a bad name for him. He was not quite open, either. In Dr. Luttrell's opinion he ought by this time to have confided in them fully. "He is a bit shifty and hazy about things," he said to himself, ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... hand and burst into his noisy, boyish laughter, so reminiscent of things rural and boorish, of the coarse, strong spirits of the happy-go-lucky, irresponsibles that work as field hands and wood-haulers. "By cracky, Grant, I just got sight of the remnants of that dig I gave you. It ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... vineyards and fields and the remoter villages. As yet they were usually in picturesque peasant attire, young farmers in blouses or with bretelles crossing in odd fashion the queer shirts they wore. Careless happy-go-lucky boys chattering in the excitement of the new life which they were entering, only half-informed as to the catastrophes which were taking place, but the mothers and sisters, plain country women in short skirts, quaint bodices and caps, looked upon their departure ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... can sit round in a chair and doze a little when I am not wanted!" replied Sylvia in that happy-go-lucky way she had of saying things, and which as a rule no one heeded. But the doctor frowned heavily as he said: "That will not do at all; young people cannot get on without proper sleep, and you must be fresh and fit to take your sister's place in the morning, for your brother is going to want ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... slums of high buildings in New York and Chicago, but in the alley slums of Washington. In Washington people can not afford to ignore the harm that this causes. No Christian and civilized community can afford to show a happy-go-lucky lack of concern for the youth of to-day; for, if so, the community will have to pay a terrible penalty of financial burden and social degradation in the to-morrow. There should be severe child-labor and factory-inspection ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... that because of the lack of a political system on Mars, such as you deem necessary on your Earth, that all is chaos and life a sort of happy-go-lucky existence. On the contrary, the Martian existence is controlled by the acme of system, which is in accordance with the law of Divine Harmony. A system from which has been eliminated all the useless wheels which so clog up your lives and make your ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... occupation of discovering, from a comparison with the great rival organ, the deficiencies of The Flag of Judah in the matter of news, his organization for the collection of which partook of the happy-go-lucky character of little Sampson. Fortunately, to-day there were no flagrant omissions, no palpable shortcomings such as had once and again thrown the office of the Flag into mourning when communal pillars were found dead ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... suffered from it know with what terrible rapidity an unjust rumor grows and spreads. Inoculated by this evil germ, even the fairest judgment becomes diseased. Those who had best known Frederic Kaye, the old people who recalled his frank, impetuous, happy-go-lucky boyhood, here in the town where he was born and bred; those who had received good from his hand, and nothing but good; even these joined with the baser sort in considering the night attack upon the mill owner "quite natural. Just ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... foreigner coming to England more than our lack of general ideas. Our art criticism is no exception; it, like our literature and politics, is happy-go-lucky and delights in the pot-shot. We often hear this attributed admiringly to "the sporting instinct." "If God, in his own time, granteth me to write something further about matters connected with painting, ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... was still the face of Levi West, it was a very different Levi West than the shiftless ne'er-do-well who had run away to sea in the Brazilian brig that long time ago. That Levi West had been a rough, careless, happy-go-lucky fellow; thoughtless and selfish, but with nothing essentially evil or sinister in his nature. The Levi West that now sat in a rush-bottom chair at the other side of the fireplace had that stamped upon his front that might ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle |
