Wilde×Parker

Two spendthrifts remember when the money arrived—and how fast it left.

00:00of10:16

legend · A

Oscar Wilde

1854–1900

Would rather be clever than correct

corpus9.4k pages · plays, letters, criticism

Vera speaking

From the studio at Reborn Radio — next on ROAST NIGHT, Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker. They take up On the first time they had real money and what they did with it.

legend · B

Dorothy Parker

1893–1967

Has a verdict before you finish speaking

corpus5.1k pages · reviews, verse, letters

full transcript

Vera
From the studio at Reborn Radio — next on ROAST NIGHT, Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker. They take up On the first time they had real money and what they did with it.
Oscar Wilde
The first time I had real money, Dorothy, I did what any sensible person would do. I spent it all immediately on things I didn't need but absolutely required. A fur-lined overcoat, if memory serves, and several dozen yellow roses for my rooms at Oxford. One must have a philosophy about money, and mine was that it looked far better leaving my pocket than entering it.
Dorothy Parker
Yellow roses. Christ, Oscar, you were doomed from the start. I got my first decent check from Vanity Fair and bought a dog. Not a sensible dog, mind you. An awful little Bedlington terrier that looked like a moth-eaten bath mat and hated everyone, including me. Cost me a fortune in vet bills before it died, probably out of spite.
Oscar Wilde
A dog that embodied resentment. How perfectly modern. Though I confess, I never understood the appeal of pets. They lack conversation, and their loyalty is cheaply bought with table scraps. Give me a friend who might betray me interestingly over a creature who loves me for a biscuit.
Dorothy Parker
That dog was better company than most of the men I knew, and cheaper in the long run. But we're talking about money, not my romantic disasters, which would take considerably longer. When did you first feel rich, Oscar? Really rich, not just Oxford-allowance rich?
Oscar Wilde
Ah, well that would have been after the American lecture tour in 1882. I came back with actual money, not just the promise of it. The Americans paid me handsomely to tell them they had no taste, which struck me as wonderfully perverse. I believe I made nearly six thousand pounds that year.
Dorothy Parker
Six thousand pounds for telling Americans they're vulgar. And they say there's no justice in the world. What did you do with it? Please tell me something monumentally stupid.
Oscar Wilde
I rented better rooms in London, naturally. And I began to dress as I had always believed I should dress, which is to say, like myself but more expensive. Velvet coats. Silk cravats the color of good champagne. One cannot preach the gospel of beauty while looking like a bank clerk. Also, I gave a great deal of it away at dinner parties. Money evaporates so beautifully when shared with friends who are slightly drunk and very witty.
Dorothy Parker
You gave it away at dinner parties. I spent mine at dinner parties, which is different and possibly more pathetic. The Algonquin Round Table years, when I was pulling in decent money from magazines. I'd get a check and think, good, now I can pay rent. Then somebody would say let's go to Tony's, and I'd pick up the tab because I was twenty-seven and stupid.
Oscar Wilde
But surely picking up the tab is one of life's great pleasures? To watch faces brighten when they realize they won't be paying for their own lobster? I maintained a permanent table at the Café Royal for years. It bankrupted me eventually, but what a bankruptcy.
Dorothy Parker
The difference is you made it look elegant. I just looked drunk and desperate for company. Which I was, so at least I was honest. Did you ever save any of it, Oscar, or were you born without that particular instinct?
Oscar Wilde
Saving money is the last refuge of people who have no imagination about spending it. I kept meaning to be prudent, I really did. I'd tell myself, this time I shall put something aside for the future. But then I'd see a first edition, or a friend would need help with rent, or I'd discover a new restaurant that served ortolans. The future always seemed so dull compared to the present.
Dorothy Parker
Ortolans. Jesus. I can't even pretend to judge you because I spent my first real money on books and booze, in that order. First editions of things I'd never read and bottles of things I'd read too much of already. But at least books appreciate in value. Your roses just died.
Oscar Wilde
Yes, but they died beautifully, which is rather the point. You Americans always want your pleasure to have a purpose. Can't a thing simply be lovely for an afternoon? Must it appreciate in value or teach us something or improve our character? Sometimes beauty is its own justification.
Dorothy Parker
Beauty is its own justification when you're twenty-three and getting paid to be charming. At thirty, broke again, beauty starts looking like a bad investment. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying you're Oscar Wilde, and the rest of us have to live in the actual world where landladies want rent, not philosophy.
Oscar Wilde
Oh, landladies. I was always on excellent terms with mine until I actually owed them money. I had a gift for persuading them that payment was imminent while knowing perfectly well it wasn't. One must be able to lie gracefully about money, Dorothy. It's the cornerstone of civilization.
Dorothy Parker
I lied gracefully about money for twenty years. Told editors the check must have gotten lost in the mail. Told my landlord I was expecting a big sale any day now. Told myself I'd definitely start saving next month. The only person I couldn't lie to was the bartender, because he'd cut me off.
Oscar Wilde
A bartender with standards. How vulgar. Mine always extended me credit, though I suppose that's because I made their establishments fashionable simply by being seen there. When I drank at a place, others followed. I was less a customer than an advertisement in velvet.
Dorothy Parker
When I drank at a place, the other customers left. Different effect entirely. But you're dodging the question, Oscar. Your first real money—did any of it actually last? Or did you just float on charm and credit until the next check came?
Oscar Wilde
Lasted? My dear, money doesn't last, it circulates. Or rather, it should circulate, like good conversation or French champagne. The moment you hoard it, it becomes dead weight. I spent everything I made, and then I spent rather more than that, and I have no regrets whatsoever except possibly the wallpaper in the rooms I rented in Paris. Ghastly stuff. I should have spent more carefully there.
Dorothy Parker
The wallpaper. Of course. Not the bankruptcy, not the debts, the wallpaper. You're consistent, I'll give you that. I regret the dog, which ate my couch cushions. And maybe some of the men, who also ate my couch cushions in their way. But mostly the dog.
Oscar Wilde
Did you learn anything from your first brush with solvency? I learned that money makes one more of what one already is. If you're generous, you become more generous. If you're foolish, you become magnificently foolish. I chose magnificence, naturally.
Dorothy Parker
I learned that having money is almost as stressful as not having it, because then you have to worry about keeping it. So I solved that problem by not keeping it. Easier on the nerves. Also, I learned that rich people are just as miserable as poor people, but they're miserable in nicer restaurants.
Oscar Wilde
Precisely! Though I would argue that being miserable at the Café Royal is objectively superior to being miserable in some dreadful chophouse in Lambeth. The quality of one's suffering matters, Dorothy. One should at least suffer in good company with decent wine.
Dorothy Parker
I suffered in excellent company with indecent amounts of wine. The Round Table years were basically one long expensive headache punctuated by moments of thinking I was clever. Turns out I was just drunk and loud, but at least I was drunk and loud on somebody else's dime half the time.
Oscar Wilde
Drunk and loud has its charms, though I preferred drunk and languid myself. Less exhausting, and one makes fewer enemies. Though I suppose enemies can be useful. They spread one's name about, which is nearly as valuable as money and considerably more reliable.
Dorothy Parker
My enemies didn't spread my name, they spread rumors about how much I drank and who I slept with. Which was fair, actually. I did drink a lot and I made terrible choices. But we were talking about money, not my character defects, which is good because we'd be here all night.
Oscar Wilde
Character defects are so much more interesting than virtues, don't you find? I spent my first money celebrating my vices rather than correcting them. It seemed the honest thing to do. Why pretend to be prudent when one is fundamentally a creature of excess?
Dorothy Parker
Because pretending to be prudent occasionally keeps you out of bankruptcy court. Not that I ever managed it. Every time I got ahead, I'd celebrate by spending more than I'd earned. It's like I couldn't stand the idea of financial security. Made me nervous.
Oscar Wilde
Financial security is terribly overrated. It makes people dull and careful. Give me a friend who's one month from eviction over a friend with a trust fund any day. The former has urgency, passion, desperation. The latter has opinions about stocks. I know which conversation I'd rather have.
Dorothy Parker
Easy to say when you're dead and don't have to worry about next month's rent. But yeah, my broke friends were more fun than my rich ones. The rich ones just complained about their taxes and their terrible children. The broke ones at least had the decency to be entertaining about their disasters.
Oscar Wilde
We've stumbled onto something true, haven't we? Money ruins conversation. The minute people have it, they start talking about mortgages and investments instead of ideas. This is why I spent mine as quickly as possible. I was protecting the quality of discourse.
Dorothy Parker
That's one way to frame alcoholism and compulsive spending, sure. Call it protecting discourse. I like it. From now on, when people ask why I'm broke, I'll tell them I was safeguarding the intellectual climate of my generation. They'll buy me a drink just to shut me up.
Oscar Wilde
They should buy you a drink regardless. Though I suppose the difference between us, Dorothy, is that I genuinely believed in beauty over thrift. You seem to have spent your money while knowing better, which strikes me as rather more tragic.
Dorothy Parker
Oh, I always knew better. That was the problem. Every time I bought another round or took a cab I couldn't afford, I knew exactly how stupid I was being. But I did it anyway because the alternative was going home alone to count my money like some kind of miser. And I'd rather die broke than live like that.
Oscar Wilde
Then we're in perfect agreement. Better to die broke and memorable than rich and forgotten. Though I do wish I'd kept enough back for a decent hotel room at the end. The Hôtel d'Alsace was charming, but the wallpaper really was inexcusable. I should have saved money for better wallpaper. That's my one regret.
Dorothy Parker
The wallpaper. Christ, Oscar, even dying you were worried about interior design. I hope when I go, my last thought is something profound, but it'll probably be wondering if I paid the bar tab. At least we were consistent. Came in broke, went out broke, had a hell of a time in between.
Oscar Wilde
To consistency, then. And to first money badly spent, which is infinitely more satisfying than last money carefully hoarded. Here's to yellow roses and terrible dogs and all the magnificent waste that makes life worth living.
Dorothy Parker
I'll drink to that. If I had any money, which I don't, because I spent it all. Just like you taught me, Oscar. Just like you taught all of us.