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noun
Spa  n.  A spring or mineral water; so called from a place of this name in Belgium.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Spa" Quotes from Famous Books



... of prisoners, among them many officers of rank, and 500 horses. Parma finding himself thus suddenly in face of a superior army, with a rapid river in his rear, fell back across the Waal, and then proceeded to Spa to recruit his shattered health, leaving Verdugo, an experienced officer, ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... which half the fashion of London had been invited to an intended assembly at his house in Grosvenor Square." [Mr. Thrale, who had long suffered from ill health, had been contemplating a journey to Spa, and thence to Italy. His physicians, however, were strongly opposed to the scheme, and Fanny writes, just before his death, that it was settled that a great meeting of hi friends should take place, and that they should endeavour to prevail ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... seldom. My mother's letters had small comfort for me. They said that papa's health mended slowly—was very delicate—he could not bear much exertion—his head would not endure any excitement. They were trying constant changes of scene and air. They were at Spa, at Paris, at Florence, at Vevay, in the Pyrenees; not staying long anywhere. The physicians talked of a long sea voyage. From all which I gradually brought down my hopes into smaller and smaller compass; till finally I packed them up and stowed them ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... the revolution of 1848, nearly all the watering-places in the Prusso-Rhenane provinces, and in Bavaria, and Hesse, Nassau, and Baden, contained Kursaals, where gambling was openly carried on. These existed at Aix-la-Chapelle, Baden-Baden, Wiesbaden, Ems, Kissengen, and at Spa, close to the Prussian frontier, in Belgium. It is due to the fierce democrats who revolted against the monarchs of the defunct Holy Alliance, to say that they utterly swept away the gambling-tables in Rhenish-Prussia, and in the Grand Duchy of Baden. Herr Hecker, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... and then probably I may taste some that I like, and go upon sure ground. There is commonly very good, both at Aix-la-Chapelle and Liege, where I formerly got some excellent, which I carried with me to Spa, where I ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... near unto his predecessor Adam. His grave being, in the year 1648, opened to receive the body of John Towers, late head bishop of this place, there was found a seal of lead (the instrument wholly consumed), having on one side these letters thus inscribed:—'SPA SPE,' over their several effigies; on the reverse—'CLEMENS P P VI.' (Gunton, p. 47-48). It is probable that the instrument was some indulgence gotten at the jubilee, which was ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips

... from Paris on June 18, 1911. Distance, 1,073 miles, via Paris to Liege; Liege to Spa to Liege; Liege to Utrecht, Holland; Utrecht to Brussels, Belgium; Brussels to Roubaix; Roubaix to Calais; Calais to London; London to Calais and Calais to Paris. Three aeronauts were killed either at the start or shortly after the race was in ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell

... eligible estate to lay out in building plots! Magnificent health resort! Beats Baden, Spa, Homburg, and ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn

... old guy I knew named Paul, an '80-something homesteader who was renowned for his organic garden and his good health. Paul referred me to his doctor, Isabelle Moser, who at that time was running the Great Oaks School of Health, a residential and out-patient spa nearby ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... Sulphur is the only watering-place remaining in the United States where there is what may be called an "assembly," such as might formerly be seen at Saratoga or at Ballston Spa in Irving's young days. Everybody is in the drawing-room in the evening, and although, in the freedom of the place, full dress is not exacted, the habit of parade in full toilet prevails. When King entered ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... have a scheme to pay off our nation's debt without burthening the subject with a fresh tax; my scheme is as follows: I would have all the Thames water bottled up, and sold for Spa water. Who'll buy it, you'll say? Why the waterman's company must buy it, or they never could work their boats any more: there's a {29}scheme to pay off the nation's debt, without burthening the subject with a fresh tax." [ Takes the ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens

... monstrosity of recent years that has been hung on behind, is not visible) stood out clearly in the sunlight, standing high above the town, which slumbers, in dignified ease, within its shadow. A few old mansions, up the Spa, seen before they landed, with the promise of others concealed among the trees, higher up, told their story of ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott

... Spa Fields derives its name) dates as far back as 1206. In the eighteenth century, it was a celebrated place of amusement. There is a curious view of "London Spaw" in a rare pamphlet entitled May-Day, or, The Original of Garlands. Printed ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 55, November 16, 1850 • Various

... letters from his father and aunt, and also from the Chevalier. That gentleman recalled himself to the Vidame's memory. He had been at Spa with M. de Pamiers in 1778, after a certain journey made by a celebrated Hungarian princess. And Chesnel also wrote. The fond flattery to which the unhappy boy was only too well accustomed shone out of every page; and Mlle. Armande seemed ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac

... betwixt the 2 parties, I don't doubt but you have seen by this time Messrs Bland & Weatherill who were to set out for Engelland the same week I parted with them. When I was leaving Leyden Mr Vernon happen'd to tell me he had a great mind to make a trip to Spa. So my uncles' estate being on ye road I desir'd him to come along with me, he has been here a week and went on afterwards in his journey, at my arrival here, I found that General Count Palfi with an infinite number of military attendants had taken possession ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing

... pencils, some of his engraving tools, and a few blocks of boxwood, his silver-mounted flute, and a book for Amaryllis. He packed his carpet-bag and hastened away to his Baden-Baden, to Coombe Oaks, his spa among the apple-bloom, the song of ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... a protective movement undertaken by Lord Sidmouth (1757-1844) as Home Secretary in 1817—after the Luddite riots, the general disaffection in the country, Thistlewood's Spa Fields uprising and the break-down of the prosecution. Curious reading on the subject is to be found in the memoirs of Richmond the Spy, and Peter Mackenzie's remarks on that book and its author, in Tait's Magazine. The spy system culminated with the failure of the Cato ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... me why the idlers of Europe go to Spa instead of coming to Provins, when the springs here have a superior curative value recognized by the French faculty,—a potential worthy of the medicinal ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac

... him over—to their own imminent peril; and the patrician winner of the Vase, the brilliant six-year-old of Paris, and Shire and Spa steeple-chase fame, the knightly descendant of the White Cockade blood and of the coursers of Circassia, had resented the familiarity proportionately to his own renown and dignity. The King was a very sweet-tempered horse, a perfect ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... apparel is new, as one of the officers told Monsieur D. at Spa. Uniforms, boots, belts, saddles, bridles and even buttons—all new and spic and span for a triumphal entry into Paris. Each man carries two sets of buttons, one for field service (negligible) and the other, shining brass ones, ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow

... to him—sly old dog. At any rate, the old fellow took a monstrous fancy to me, over his claret, and when I mentioned Bath, recommended me to call upon his wife (a very fine dame, who prefers the fashion of the Spa to the business of Bristol, and consequently lives as much in the former place as good John Harewood will allow). Well, you wonder at my looking prosperous and happy. Listen, for here is the hic: At Lady Maria Harewood's I met one who, if I mistake ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... incautiously defends the Chevalier in conversation, fights a duel, and, although his antagonist is only wounded, he finds his reputation blighted by the stigma of Jacobitism. After a long illness at Vienna where he is pestered by Catholic priests, he recovers his health at Spa, and falls in love with a young English girl. Her parents gladly give their consent, but Maria seems unaccountably averse to the match. And when our hero is assaulted by a jealous footman, he perceives that the lady ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... of June he set off with his wife for a cure abroad to the Black Forest, and settled in a little spa called Badenweiler. He was dying, although he wrote to everyone that he had almost recovered, and that health was coming back to him not by ounces but by hundredweights. He was dying, but he spent the time dreaming of going to the Italian lakes and returning ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... feet higher than St. Moritz; and that the bracing air at an elevation of 6400 feet has probably as much to do with the recovery of the invalid as has the judicious quaffing of medicinal waters. Of pure iron springs, the famous Schwalbach contains rather more iron than the Ute Iron, and Spa rather less. On the whole, Manitou has the advantage of the most celebrated medicinal springs in Europe, and has a climate even in midwinter preferable to all ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... her] asked him why, he said, 'Because it makes us grow so. Oh, I am growing so fast I can scarcely get along!' Mr. Fields said it made him very sleepy to go to church, and he thought it was because of the deacons.—He says the world is wild with rapture over your 'Leamington Spa.' He did not know how to express his appreciation of it.—We met Mr. Tom Appleton at the gallery, and he was very edifying. There is a good portrait by Hunt. Mr. Appleton called it 'big art,' which took my fancy, it being so refreshing after ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... belonging to Edwin Larcher, Esq. This was not one of the sales indicating the depression of trade; on the contrary, it was due to Mr. Larcher's great success in the carrying business, which warranted his purchase of a mansion near Riverston already furnished in high style by an illustrious Spa physician—furnished indeed with such large framefuls of expensive flesh-painting in the dining-room, that Mrs. Larcher was nervous until reassured by finding the subjects to be Scriptural. Hence the ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... one of the hottest places in the world, and like Spa, of which it reminds me, must be one of the most wearisome. Just such a promenade, with a sleepy band, just such a casino, just such a routine. This favourite resort of the third Napoleon has of late years seen many ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... and overwhelming preponderance. Yet, however unsuited such a Parliament would be for the present time, however uncongenial it might have been to the feelings of a Cobbett or Hunt-man, escaped from Spa Felds ten or twenty years afterwards, it undoubtedly well represented the conservative, semi-despotic feelings of the military settler, or United Empire loyalist, a kind of privileged being, whose very descendants were entitled to a free grant of two hundred ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... chief of state: KIM Jong Il (since July 1994); note - on 3 September 2003, rubberstamp Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) reelected KIM Jong Il chairman of the National Defense Commission, a position accorded nation's "highest administrative authority"; SPA reelected KIM Yong Nam president of its Presidium also with responsibility of representing state and receiving ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... was not wholly absorbed in the cultivation of flowers. Visions of wealth residing in that well evidently captured his imagination, and he at once set to work fitting up his gardens as a kind of spa, where the public could drink for his financial benefit. A second well was sunk and found to yield another variety of mineral water, and the two waters were connected with a double pump over which a circular edifice named the Temple was constructed. Other attractions were added ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... generally eat a good deal then, and I often laugh, for Nurse and Mrs. Savory are so funny together. But Mrs. Savory's very kind, and last time she came she brought me a pincushion, and the time before she gave me a Spa mug and two apples." ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... anything to follow, such as: 'Reflexions on respiration, on the true cause of youth—the crows'; a new method of winning the lottery at Rome; recipes, among which is a long printed list of perfumes sold at Spa; a newspaper cutting, dated Prague, 25th October 1790, on the thirty-seventh balloon ascent of Blanchard; thanks to some 'noble donor' for the gift of a dog called 'Finette'; a passport for Monsieur de Casanova, Venitien, allant d'ici en Hollande, October 13, 1758 (Ce ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... Germany of a stable Government to treat with. The question of how such provisions were to be paid for presented, however, the gravest difficulties. A series of Conferences was held at Treves, at Spa, at Brussels, and subsequently at Chateau Villette and Versailles, between representatives of the Allies and of Germany, with the object of finding some method of payment as little injurious as possible to the future prospects of Reparation ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... was making a “cure” last year at Lamalou, an obscure Spa in the Cevennes Mountains, Madame Calvé, to whom I had expressed a desire to see her picturesque home, telegraphed an invitation to pass the day with her, naming the train she could meet, which would allow for the long drive ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... earlier volumes, to which even Scott did not disdain to contribute. Besides editing and writing for The Talisman, which was published for three years (1827-29-30), Mr. Bryant furnished several papers for "Tales of the Glauber Spa," a collection of entertaining stories, the work of Sands, Verplanck, Paulding, Leggett, Miss Sedgwick, and himself. This was published in 1832, as was also the first collected edition of his poems. In 1834 he took a vacation from his editorial labors, and sailed ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... are (or were) to be seen, written with a diamond upon a pane of glass in a window of the Hotel des Pays-Bas, Spa, Belgium, with the date 1793. I do not know whether they are to be found in the ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... sea, and is expected to show itself in the Channel. The Archduke Maximilian has been chosen coadjutor, and consequently future Elector of Cologne, and Bishop of Munster. The Prince and Princess of Orange expect daily a visit from the King of Sweden, on his return from Spa. The Prince of Prussia is at Petersburg; the Emperor is returned to Vienna. The King of Prussia is engaged with the review ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... of the Hot Well, whose waters Pope was sent to drink, has utterly collapsed. The Hot Well house was long ago removed to admit a widening of the river, and the well itself is now inaccessible. There is no spa, once of great reputation, that has sunk into such complete oblivion as the Clifton Hot Well: this may be due, in part, to the exaggerated estimate that was formed of the virtue of the water, and to the blamable practice which prevailed of sending ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... being at a spa in Germany one summer when she was young, with Mr. Sevier. When they asked for the first floor apartment instead of theirs on the second, they were told by the proprietor that it was engaged for "some Englishman; ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker

... notorious villain never dealt a card. At Venice, at Brussels, at Spa, at Vienna—the gaols of every one of which places he knew. I knew the man, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and wit—Oh, certainly society suffers by it intolerably— for now instead of the social spirit of Raillery that used to mantle over a glass of bright Burgundy their conversation is become just like the Spa water they drink which has all the Pertness and flatulence of champaine without its spirit ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... was once a Castle known to all mankind; King Pipin's Castle, who styled himself "Pipin of Heristal," before he became King of the Franks and begot Charlemagne. It lies on the Maas, in that fruitful Spa Country; left bank of the Maas, a little to the north of Liege; and probably began existence as a grander place than Liege (LUTTICH), which was, at first, some Monastery dependent on secular Herstal and its grandeurs:—think only how the race has gone between these two entities; spiritual Liege now ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... isn't any use in my wasting the summer, Guy," he said, in conclusion, "I won't let this red-herring, trailed across my path, prevent me from going over at once, as I originally intended, to Dinant and Spa, and fulfilling the commission for those pictures of Dale and Norton's; You and Nevitt can see meanwhile what it's possible for us to do in the matter of hunting up this family mystery. You can telegraph if you want me, and I'll come back at once. ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... also discovered that the same species of air is contained in great quantities in the water of the Pyrmont spring at Spa in Germany, and in other mineral waters, which have what is called an acidulous taste, and that their peculiar flavour, briskness, and medicinal virtues, are derived from ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... far from Huy for a picnic lunch, and then got under way again, being stopped frequently all the way to Liege, where we sought out the Consulate. The Consul had gone to Spa to look after some English people, but I said my few words to his wife and daughter, and then hurried away toward Vise and ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... it will correct a number of remarkable errors, which now pass current as historical facts in connection with the rise into fame of Harrogate as our premier Spa. These errors would never have arisen had there been a more free access to this very scarce book. Most writers appear to have depended for their knowledge of its contents upon the summary of it contained in Dr. Thomas Short's "History of Mineral Waters," published ...
— Spadacrene Anglica - The English Spa Fountain • Edmund Deane

... Congress Hall, Edith Linsey, and the Lunatic's Skate, together with some of the Letters from Under a Bridge, are worthy of preservation, not only as readable stories, but as society studies of life at American watering places like Nahant and Saratoga and Ballston Spa half a century ago. A number of his simpler poems, like Unseen Spirits, Spring, To M—— from Abroad, and Lines on Leaving Europe, still retain a deserved place in collections ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... set far back from the highway in a wilderness of shrubbery, secluded by hedges and shaded by an almost primeval growth of elms or maples. The whole hamlet might be mistaken for a lordly park or an old-fashioned German Spa. Family marketing was mostly done in Warchester; hence the village shops were like Arabian bazaars, few but all-supplying. The most pregnant evidence of the approach of modern ways that tinged the primitive color ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... 1808 there were printed at Ballston-Spa—then the resort of fashion and the arena of flirtation—seven numbers of a duodecimo bagatelle in prose and verse, entitled "The Literary Picture Gallery and Admonitory Epistles to the Visitors of Ballston-Spa, by Simeon Senex, Esquire." This piece of summer nonsense is not referred ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner

... roubles from Potemkin at the Winter Palace at Petersburg, which the scoundrelly favourite never paid me; I have had the honour of seeing his Royal Highness the Chevalier Charles Edward as drunk as any porter at Rome; my uncle played several matches at billiards against the celebrated Lord C——at Spa, and I promise you did not come off a loser. In fact, by a neat stratagem of ours, we raised the laugh against his Lordship, and something a great deal more substantial. My Lord did not know that the Chevalier Barry had a useless eye; ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... in a rejoinder. His rapid pen found no difficulty in turning off 300 pages of fluent Latin. It was his last occupation. He died at Spa, where he was taking the waters, in September, 1653, and his reply was not published till 1660, after the Restoration, when all interest had died out of the controversy. If it be true that the work was written at Spa, without books at hand, it ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... situated by the side of the road to Paris, under Mont Ste. Catherine, yet, still upon an eminence, beneath which are some mineral springs, that were long famous for their medicinal qualities, but have of late years been abandoned, and the spa-drinkers now resort to others in the quarter of the town called de la Marequerie. Both the one and the other are highly ferruginous, but the latter most strongly ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... Antoinette were numberless and public. The young queen of France chose for her intimate companions men and women of bad reputation. Her brother, Joseph II., was shocked when he visited her, at the familiar manners which she permitted. He wrote to her that English travelers compared her court to Spa, then a famous gambling-place, and he called the house of the Princess of Guemenee, which she was in the habit of frequenting, "a real gambling-hell." Accusations of cheating at cards flew about the palace, and one courtier had his pocket picked in the ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... mile to the south of Broadwey, was once a spa, first resorted to as far back as the reign of George I. The well house, visited by the third George, is now a residence and the pleasant surroundings are made picturesque ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... dozy, lazy kind of life. I was past seventeen years of age, and it was the autumn of the year '29. We were resting for a time—not that Master, Chaplain, or Man ever did much to entitle them to repose—at the famous watering-place of Spa, close to the German Frontier. We put up at the Silver Stag, where we were entertained in very Handsome Style. Spa, or the Spaw, as it was sometimes called, was then one of the most Renowned Baths in Europe, and was attended by the very Grandest company. Here, when we arrived, was my Lord Duke ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... Editor, cannot do better in commencing this chapter than to introduce you to H.L., a litterateur and a "fin gourmet," living in Belgium, who has written the notes on "the food of the country" on Antwerp and Spa, and to whom I am indebted for the entire succeeding chapter ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard

... to Spa, and he assured me that if I followed him I should find Prince Adam's sister, Tomatis, and Madame Catai, who had become the manager's wife. I determined to go to Spa, and to take measures so that I might go there with three or four hundred ducats in my purse. To this intent I wrote to Prince ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... unreal summer, partly because, driven to find relief from memory in occupation, she was devoting herself very seriously to the medical instruction under Dr. Benton; partly because she did not consider it a fitting time to seek the coolness and luxury of inland spa ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... gentlemen," he said, "but I've had a good look at the damage, an' I feel pwitty shu-aw I'll get up steam in one boil-aw within ten days or a fawt-night. It'll be a makeshift job at the best, because I have so few spa-aw fittin's, an' no chance of makin' a castin', but I'll bet a ye'aw's scwew the Kansas gets a move on her undaw her own steam soon aftaw ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... the reader the locality described in this chapter. There is, or rather I should say there was, a little inn, called Mumps's Hall, that is, being interpreted, Beggar's Hotel, near to Gilsland, which had not then attained its present fame as a Spa. It was a hedge alehouse, where the Bolder farmers of either country often stopped to refresh themselves and their nags, in their way to and from the fairs and trysts in Cumberland, and especially those who ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... be better for the digestion," said my uncle. "It is highly impregnated with iron. It will be as good for us as going to the Spa, or to Tplitz." ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... with anything like his ability. But when it came to describing the small differences of manner, differences not due to external habits, so much as to internal sentiment or education, or mere domestic circumstance, he was beyond his proper field. In the sketch of the St. Ronan's Spa and the company at the table-d'hote, he is of course somewhere near the mark,—he was too able a man to fall far short of success in anything he really gave to the world; but it is not interesting. Miss Austen ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton

... resolved to retire into Pomerland, and this summer to go to the Spa to drink the waters ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... honors and civilities already mentioned, he was much caressed by the literati of Albany; particularly by Mr. John Cook, who entertained him very hospitably at his circulating library and reading-room, where they used to drink Spa water, and talk about the ancients. He found Mr. Cook a man after his own heart—of great literary research, and a curious collector of books At parting, the latter, in testimony of friendship, made him a present of the two ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... place was the Dog and Duck in St. George's Fields, which boasted mineral springs, good for gout, stone, king's evil, sore eyes, and inveterate cancers. Considering its virtue, the water was a cheap liquor, for a dozen bottles could be had at the spa for a shilling. The Dog and Duck, though at last it exhibited depraved tastes, was at one time well conducted. Miss Talbot writes about it to Mrs. Carter, and Dr. Johnson advised his Thralia to try the waters. It was no mean place, but boasted a breakfast-room, ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... from the clean fair face of the Captain. Papa's Captain—yes—was the Countess; but she wasn't nearly so nice as the other: it all came back, doubtless, to Maisie's minor appreciation of ladies. "Shouldn't you like me," said this one endearingly, "to take you to Spa?" ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

... rocking-horse, to delight his little boy, and rare gems or a silver service for a bridal gift. This English tailor will provide him with a "capital fit," that German tobacconist with a creamy meerschaum. At the artificial Spa he may recuperate with Vichy or Kissingen, and at the phrenologist's have his mental and moral aptitudes defined; now a "medium" invites him to a spiritual seance, and now an antiquarian to a "curiosity shop." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... of Samuel F.B. Morse" by Samuel Irenaeus Prime appears Cooper's letter from "Spa, July ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips

... 30. I have drank Spa waters this two or three days; but they do not pass, and make me very giddy. I an't well; faith, I'll take them no more. I sauntered after church with the Provost to-day to see a library to be sold, and dined at five with Lord Orkney. We still think there was malice in burning ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... periodic feature of the great peace, and showed as yet no signs of abating. To Paris Charles Wilbraham had gone in 1919 (and how near Henry had been to doing the same; how near, and yet how far!). To San Remo he had been, to Barcelona and to Brussels; to Spa, to Genoa, even to Venice in the autumn of 1922. Besides all the League of Nations Assemblies. Where the eagles were gathered together, there, always, would Charles ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay

... wit, but for a thousand good qualities." I am glad, for my part, that such a lover of cakes and ale should have had a thousand good qualities—that he should have been friendly, generous, warm-hearted, trustworthy. "I rise at six," writes Carlisle to him, from Spa (a great resort of fashionable people in our ancestors' days), "play at cricket till dinner, and dance in the evening, till I can scarcely crawl to bed at eleven. There is a life for you! You get up at nine; play with Raton your dog till twelve, in your dressing-gown; ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... spent some days drinking the waters at Spa, with best effects for Mrs. Cooper—not over-strong since the Paris days. They left its grass of "ghostly green" when the "dog-star raged with all its fury," and "came on old Aix-la-Chapelle, well-cloaked and ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips

... a letter waiting him from Lord Auchinleck, who was naturally chagrined at the breakdown of his scheme of compromise. A visit to Paris he was prepared to allow, but the return of the wanderer to Utrecht was peremptorily commanded. The family of the Envoy was now at Spa, but next day Boswell wrote him a letter urging him to intercede with his father for the proposed extension. The letter is a very long one, and its abridgement even is impossible here, but few more Boswellian productions can be found. He has, he tells Sir Andrew, a melancholy disposition, and to ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... produces springs and rivulets, or when we speculate on the means by which the sweat passes through the skin, or the urine through the substance of the kidneys. It is well known that persons who use the Spa waters or those of La Madonna, in the territories of Padua, or others of an acidulous or vitriolated nature, or who simply swallow drinks by the gallon, pass all off again within an hour or two by the bladder. Such ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... flocked to the palace and the squares; and above all, in the circus and the theatre, where the mob enjoys complete licence, they assembled in crowds and broke out into riotous uproar. Eventually Tigellinus at Sinuessa Spa[154] received the news that his last hour was inevitably come. There after a cowardly delay in the foul embraces of his prostitutes he cut his throat with a razor, and blackened the infamy of his life by ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... be those puling fears of death, just now expressed or affected?—Passed like a cloud—absorbed in the purging sunlight of clear poetry—clean washed away by a wave of genuine Helicon, your only Spa for these hypochondries—And now another cup of the generous! and a merry New Year, and many of them, to you ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... beautiful walks abound in the vicinity of nearly every Spa, but near St. Sauveur, Luchon, Eaux Chaudes, and Argeles they are, we think, most charming. The roads on the whole are excellent, and the hotels, with hardly any exceptions, particularly clean and comfortable; and, with the one drawback of the bread (see ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough

... doppelt interessant vor. Sie meinten zwar, man mte es den Leuten immer am Gesicht ansehen, wenn sie in Italien gewesen,[28-2] aber Anneliese sah so rotbackig drein, und lie es sich so vortrefflich schmecken, und sie merkten nicht das geringste Absonderliche. Nur da der junge Eheherr ein Spavogel war, der in trockenster[28-3] Art mit dem fettesten Pinsel malte, das ...
— Eingeschneit - Eine Studentengeschichte • Emil Frommel

... and jelly-like, so that it can be readily eaten with a spoon; but as a matter of fact very few people ever do eat the flesh at all. After their first few months in the tropics, they lose the taste for this comparatively indigestible part, and confine themselves entirely (like patients at a German spa) to drinking the water. A young coco-nut is thus seen to consist, first of a green outer skin, then of a fibrous coat, which afterwards becomes the hair, and next of a harder shell which finally gets quite woody; while inside all comes the actual ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... royal parsimony, refused, and set out for the Spa waters with one of his patients; but while he was gone, Deslon, his pupil, possessor of the secret which he had refused to sell for thirty thousand francs a year, opened a public establishment for the treatment of patients. ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere

... sweep from any direction across great wastes of moor, or from the sea, health and quiet are to be found more easily than in any popular holiday resort or fashionable spa. ...
— Legend Land, Volume 2 • Various

... group of gardens connected with mineral springs was the Dog and Duck (St. George's Spa), which became at last a tea garden and a dancing saloon ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... ladder of life, treading step by step upon the identical footings marked out, may live in a provincial town. When we want to drink spa waters, or vary the scene, we now visit watering-places; but rather than force me to live at one again, "stick me up," as Andrew Fairservice says, in Rob Roy, "as a regimental target for ball-practice." We have long ceased ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various

... they were the most ancient and illustrious family of that part of Ireland. I remember there came down to see his aunt a young fellow with huge red whiskers and tight nankeens, a green coat, and an awful breastpin, who, after two days' stay at the Spa, proposed marriage to Miss S——, or, in default, a duel with her father; and who drove a flash curricle with a bay and a grey, and who was presented with much pride by Mrs. Gam as Castlereagh Molloy of Molloyville. ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray

... certain lines. The Norman peasant and the Provencal peasant, for example; also the small officeholder, the gentleman of the provinces, the country squire, the clubman of Paris, the journalist of the boulevard, the doctor at the spa, the commercial artist, and, on the feminine side, the servant girl, the working girl, the demigrisette, the street girl, rich or poor, the gallant lady of the city and of the provinces, and the society woman—these are some of the figures that he has painted at many sittings, ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... dissimulation, and he resolved to take some bold and decided measure. A very favorable opportunity was presented in the arrival of the queen of Navarre, Marguerite of Valois, at Namur, on her way to Spa. The prince, numerously attended, hastened to the former town under pretence of paying his respects to the queen. As soon as she left the place, he repaired to the glacis of the town, as if for the mere enjoyment of a ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... that I was not married he urged me to come back in the summer so that he might take me over in a curagh to the Spa in County Glare, where there is 'spree mor agus go leor ladies' ('a big spree and ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge

... again, which she had neglected entirely. How pleased he would be at even that. If her former zeal for art showed itself again, that was a thousand times more health-bringing than the strongest iron springs at Spa. ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig

... But if it is liver, why not try Woodhall Spa? I believe the treatment there is very drastic and beneficial. Why not go there, bishop? I'm sure a holiday would do ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... and at a foreign Spa, thousands of miles distant from the scene of her former triumphs, Miss Trotter reappeared as a handsome, stately, gray-haired stranger, whose aristocratic bearing deeply impressed a few of her own countrymen who witnessed her arrival, ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte

... circus, crescent, mall, piazza, arcade, colonnade, peristyle, cloister; gardens, grove, residences; block of buildings, market place, place, plaza. anchorage, roadstead, roads; dock, basin, wharf, quay, port, harbor. quarter, parish &c. (region) 181. assembly room, meetinghouse, pump room, spa, watering place; inn; hostel, hostelry; hotel, tavern, caravansary, dak bungalow[obs3], khan, hospice; public house, pub, pot house, mug house; gin mill, gin palace; bar, bar room; barrel house* [U.S.], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... inspected was that of a paper-sorting works at Spa Road, Bermondsey, where all sorts of waste paper are dealt with in enormous quantities. Of this stuff some is given and some is bought. Upon delivery it goes to the sorters, who separate it out according to the different classes of the material, after ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard

... same time his answer to the apparent quality of the querist, though frequently leaving it unfinished in search of a customer, and moving on with so much rapidity, that you may almost find him at the same moment at Tower Hill, Billingsgate, and Spa Fields; at Smithfield, Temple Bar, and Piccadilly; indeed he may be said to be in all quarters of the town in a space of time incredibly short for a man who obtains a livelihood by seeking ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... now has been a quiet sort of man, with nothing suggestive of the "P.R." about him, sent to excuse himself from appearing at our old friend Mrs. RAM's dinner-party, because as he wrote to her nephew, who read the letter aloud, "I am off to see Woodhall Spa." "What!" she exclaimed, "Prize-fighting beginning again! And isn't Mr. WOODHALL or WOODALL a Member of Parliament? He ought to know better. Where are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 11, 1892 • Various

... from the shelves of various pieces of furniture a large stock of fancy articles—Swiss carvings, Spa toys, Genevese ornaments, and Japanese curiosities, which, as Lady Tyrrell said, "rivalled her own accumulation, and would serve to carry off the housewives and pen-wipers on which all the old maids of Wil'sbro' ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... we loved each other. As Sylvia and I wandered together by the sea on those calm September evenings, avoiding the holiday crowd, preferring the less-frequented walks to the fashionable promenades of the South Cliff or the Spa, we linked arm in arm, and I often, when not observed, kissed ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux

... Queen intends, shortly after her resignation, to go to the Spa, which I have cause to believe. In those parts they say the King of the Romans will wait upon her, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... nevertheless. And Nunkie wiped their foreheads with his checked handkerchief, helped them on with their big cloaks; and the three goddesses were now just a wrapped-up group, limping off to the staircase, like gouty patients at a spa. ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... earliest examples, outside of his critical papers in the North American Review and other periodicals (and outside of the Evening Post, of course), are two stories entitled "Medfield" and "The Skeleton's Cave," contributed by him to "Tales of the Glauber Spa" (1832)—a collection of original stories by Mr. James K. Paulding, Mr. Verplanck, Mr. Sands, Mr. William Leggett, and Miss Catharine Sedgwick. Three years before (1828) he had become the chief editor of the Evening Post. Associated with him was Mr. Leggett, who had shown some talent ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... misunderstood. When he was—it was unfortunate for those who misunderstood him. His type was as distinctive and original as his cousin's, the Englishman, whom it was not the fashion then to imitate. So that, whether in the hotel of a capital, the Kursaal of a Spa, or the humbler pension of a Swiss village, he was always characteristic. Less so was his wife, who, with the chameleon quality of her transplanted countrywomen, was already Parisian in dress; still less so his daughter, who had by this time absorbed the peculiarities of her French, German, and ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... appears that the first meeting between him and this man was at a subscription-ball, where the sharper managed to fleece him and others to a considerable amount, contriving a dexterous escape when detected. Houdin afterwards fell in with him at Spa, where he found him in the greatest poverty, and lent him a small sum—to practise his grand theories as just explained—but which he lost—whereupon Houdin advised him 'to take up a less dangerous occupation.' He then appears to have revealed to Houdin the entertaining ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... honourable for me to leave the kingdom under the pretence of a pilgrimage, or a visit to some of my kindred. The Princesse de Roche-sur-Yon was amongst those I consulted upon the occasion, who was on the point of setting off for Spa to ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... Caistor-by-Norwich. Besides these country towns, Londinium (London) was a rich and important trading town, centre of the road system, and the seat of the finance officials of the province, as the remarkable objects discovered in it abundantly prove, while Aquae Sulis (Bath) was a spa provided with splendid baths, and a richly adorned temple of the native patron deity, Sul or Sulis, whom the Romans called Minerva. Many smaller places, too, for example, Magna or Kenchester near Hereford, Durobrivae or Rochester in Kent, another Durobrivae near Peterborough, a site of uncertain ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... to-morrow; he goes by Brussels to Aix-la-Chapelle and Spa, and thence to Mannheim, when he is to give me immediate notice of his arrival, for we mean to correspond. He sends numerous greetings to you and to my sister. You write that you have heard nothing for a very long time of ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

... was of a different timber and grain; less aristocratic, more bourgeois—a rover, a gambler, a man of fashion. He migrated from the gaming-tables at Spa to the Bourse at Paris, perching at many clubs between and beyond, and making seasonal nests in several places. This left him little time for the Chdteau d'Azan. But he came there every spring and autumn, and showed the family fondness for trees in his own fashion. He loved the forests so much ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke

... may be, the austerity of Mesmer did not prevent his being most violently angry when he learnt at Spa that Deslon continued the magnetical treatments at Paris. He returned in all haste. His partisans received him with enthusiasm, and set on foot a subscription of 100 louis per head, which produced immediately near 400,000 francs, (16,000l.) We now feel some ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... her better in my life, sir,—never better. Odds blushes and blooms! she has been as healthy as the German Spa. ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... ducking-stool was at Quarry Hill, near the Spa. At the Court of Quarter Sessions, held in the town in July, 1694, it was "ordered that Anne, the wife of Phillip Saul, a person of lewd behaviour, be ducked for daily making strife and discord amongst ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews

... hy{m} in syttyng next there was The goddesse Iuno full rychely besene. In a sercote {that} shone as bryght as glas Of goldsmyth werk {with} spa{n}gles wrought beden{e} Of royall ryches wanted she none I wene. And next to her sat the god saturne. That oft syth causeth many one ...
— The Assemble of Goddes • Anonymous

... family were here in the early weeks, living "in a melancholy but very good chateau on the Paris road, where their landlord (a Baron) has supplied them, T. tells me, with one milk-jug as the entire crockery of the establishment." Our friend soon tired of this, going off to Spa, and on his return, after ascending the hill to smoke a farewell cigar with Dickens, left for London and ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... chemise a la reine. "I like," said she, "the dew of the morning, 'tis delicate and ethereal, and, by thus bespangling me, I think it will more approximate me to the nature of the rose [for her looks were like Aurora]; and to confirm the vermilion I shall go to Spa." "And drink the Podhon spring?" added I, gazing at her from top to toe. "Yes," replied the lovely Fragrantia, "with all my heart; 'tis the drink of sweetness and delicacy. Never were there any creatures ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... well-nigh down the flight of stairs." Sally Strother went abroad, where she married Baron Fahnenberg of Belgium, and shared a fate similar to that of many of her country-women, as she was finally separated from her husband. She cherished, however, a pride of title and bequeathed $60,000 to erect in Spa, Belgium, a handsome chapel as well as a vault to contain the remains of her mother, brother and herself. Her Kentucky relatives, however, including the family of Mrs. Basil Duke, succeeded in breaking ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... the long avenue began to wear a somewhat dreary look, before Mr. Granger brought his young wife home. It was October again, and the weather bleaker and colder than one had a right to expect in October. Mr. Lovel was at Spa, recruiting his health in the soft breezes that blow across the pine-clad hills, and leading a pleasant elderly-bachelor existence at one of the best hotels in the bright little inland watering-place. The shutters ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... not appeal to the taste of the English dog-loving public. In 1888 Dr. Seelig brought over Skip, Drieske, and Mia. The first-named was purchased by Mr. E. B. Joachim, and the two others by Mr. G. R. Krehl. Later on Mr. Joachim became the owner of Mr. Green's Shtoots, and bought Fritz of Spa in Belgium, and these dogs formed the nucleus of the two kennels which laid the foundation of the breed ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... drama of modern life was a mineral spring, such as are to be found in both divisions of Britain, and which are supplied with the usual materials for redeeming health, or driving away care. The invalid often finds relief from his complaints, less from the healing virtues of the Spa itself, than because his system of ordinary life undergoes an entire change, in his being removed from his ledger and account-books—from his legal folios and progresses of title-deeds—from his counters and shelves,—from whatever else forms the main source of his constant anxiety ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... arose to return, without delay, to London by the shortest possible road, even with the fear of another fieri facias before his eyes, to descant on vinous acidities, Gin Lakes, and the liver-consuming Spa of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various

... Ballston Spa, thirty-one miles from Albany, is the county seat of Saratoga. Here are several well-known mineral springs, with chemical properties similar to the springs of Saratoga. Over ninety years ago Benjamin Douglas, father of Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, built a log house, near the "Old Spring," ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce

... remember it, Jerry, and the universal opinion was, that it served him right. Why, I remember the time when old Maunders as had three-and-twenty wans—I remember the time when old Maunders had in his cottage in Spa Fields in the winter time, when the season was over, eight male and female dwarfs setting down to dinner every day, who was waited on by eight old giants in green coats, red smalls, blue cotton stockings, and high-lows: and there was one dwarf as had grown elderly and wicious who whenever his giant ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... Jenny Greenteeth, the haunting fairy of the Green Fold Clough, and how that she, who in the summer-time made the flowers grow and the birds sing, hid herself in winter on a shelf of rock above the Gin Spa Well, a lone streamlet that gurgled from out the rocky sides of the gorge. The story laid hold of his young mind, and under the glow of his imagination assumed the proportions of an Arabian Nights' wonder. He dreamed of it by night, and during the day received thrashings ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather

... pale-faced houses grouped on the brink of the fiord, like invalids at a German Spa, though picturesque in its way, with a cathedral of its own, and plenty of churches, looked rather tame and spiritless after the warmer colouring of Throndhjem; moreover it wanted novelty to me, as I called in there two years ago on my return from the Baltic. ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... your thoughts, Cilly,' said Horatia, sliding in on the slippery boards of a great bare room of a lodging-house at the celebrated Spa of Spitzwasserfitzung. ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... calculi, fatty degeneration or cirrhosis, and in hmorrhoidal affections, which are so often connected with congestion of the liver. They are equally serviceable in enlargements of the spleen and in many cases of hypochondriasis. Moreover, this spa is specially adapted for the cure of some of the chronic diseases of women connected with disordered menstruation, and for the anomalous "critical complaints" which often set in at the period of life when this function ceases. "The complaint for which nine-tenths of the English visitors drink ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... individual buildings from this city-like watering-place, but, beyond discovering the position of the Spa and one or two of the mightier hotels, I could see very little, and instead fell to wondering how many landladies and how many foreign waiters the long lines of grey roofs represented. This raised so many unpleasant recollections of the various types I had ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home

... morning, and rode over a fine country to Hexham to breakfast—from Hexham to Wardrue, the celebrated Spa, where we slept. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... and that the conference was to be repeated. A swarm of newspaper men settled about the Governor's summer cottage at Saratoga, but they learned nothing, nor could they find a trace of Plank's tracks in the trodden trails of the great Spa. ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers



Words linked to "Spa" :   hotel, resort area, health spa, watering hole, watering place, health club, vacation spot



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