Can “lackadaisical” be used in literature?

Question

Has lackadaisical ever been used in literary works? My Oxford Dictionary of Quotations has no quotation that includes this word.

Who first used lackadaisical in the 1760s as the OED claims?

Answer 1

The earliest appearance of the term in a Google Books search is this one from Letters From Yorick to Eliza, by Laurence Sterne:

When I mounted my hobby horse, I never thought, or pretended to think, where I was going, or whether I should return home to dinner or supper, or the next day, or the next week. I let him take his own course; and amble, or curvet, or trot, or go a sober, sorrowful, lackadaysical pace, as it pleased him best. It was all one to me, for my temper was ever in unison with his manner of coursing it — be it what it might, I never pricked him with a spur, or struck him with a whip; but let the rein lay loosely on his neck, and he was wont to take his way without doing injury to any one.

According to TristramShandyWeb.com, Sterne wrote these letters in 1767, but they were published posthumously (he died in 1768). The edition that Google Books has in its database is dated 1797, but I believe that the first edition came out no later than the 1770s.

The first Google Books match for lackadaisical spelled in the modern way is from significantly later, in a novel attributed to "An Old-Fashioned Englishman" [actually Mrs. Barbara Holland], Says She to Her Neighbour, What? volume 2 (1815):

You may think what you please, ladies ; but if you do not admire- my grandfather, you may be very dashing, very knowing, very quizzing, nay, even very sentimental, very lackadaisical, very romantic and novelistic, but depend upon it,- with all this, you know nothing of love, as a sublime and virtuous emotion, an ennobling and endearing principle, nor will you ever be able to comprehend the innumerable beauties in the song of Darby and Joan, for which I am extremely sorry, for I heartily wish every young lady of my acquaintance to understand it, and every married lady to experience it.

Thereafter, the occurrences of lackadaisical come thicker and faster.

Answer 2

Lackadaisical. A curious word—how has it origin- ated? Perhaps as the designation of one who was continually crying "A-lack-a-day!" which means "a lack (a loss) to-day!" Or it may be connected with "alas-the-day" (French hilas, Latin lassus, wearied). There seems no possibility of arriving at any certainty as to the derivation.

-Origins and meanings of popular phrases & names, ... . Hargrave, Basil.

"A-lack-a-day!":

When Johnny comes marching home, three act military spectacular comic opera. Book and lyrics by Stanislaus Stangé. by Edwards, Julian, 1855-1910.

The Shakespeare garden club, a fantasy, by Mabel M. Moran ... by Moran, Mabel M.

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lackadaisical

[(adj.) Look up lackadaisical at Dictionary.com 1768 (Sterne), from interjection lackadaisy "alas, alack" (1748), an alteration of lack-a-day (1690s), from alack the day (1590s). Hence, "given to crying 'lack-a-day,' vapidly sentimental." Sense probably altered by influence of lax. Related: Lackadaisically.

upsy-daisy (adv.)

1711, up-a-daisy, baby talk extension of up (adv.). Compare lackadaisical. A word upsee was in use in English late 17c. in phrases

such as upsee-Dutch "in the Dutch style" (of drinking), from Dutch op zijn, and also occasionally as an adverb, "extremely," and could have had an influence on this word.

-http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=Lackadaisical.&searchmode=none