Oscar Wilde On Marriage and Muffins

"The Importance of Being Earnest," Act 2


JACK 
I wanted to be engaged to Gwendolen, that is all. I love her.

ALGERNON
Well, I simply wanted to be engaged to Cecily. I adore her.

JACK
There is certainly no chance of your marrying Miss Cardew.

ALGERNON
I don't think there is much likelihood, Jack, of you and Miss Fairfax being united.

JACK
Well, that is no business of yours.

ALGERNON
If it was my business, I wouldn't talk about it. [Begins to eat muffins.] It is very vulgar to talk about one's business. Only people like stock-brokers do that, and then merely at dinner parties.

JACK
How can you sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can't make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.

ALGERNON
Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.

JACK
I say it's perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.

ALGERNON
When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as any one who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink. At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins. [Rising.]

JACK
[Rising.] Well, that is no reason why you should eat them all in that greedy way. [Takes muffins from ALGERNON.]

ALGERNON
[Offering tea-cake.] I wish you would have tea-cake instead. I don't like tea-cake.

JACK
Good heavens! I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own garden.

ALGERNON
But you have just said it was perfectly heartless to eat muffins.

JACK
I said it was perfectly heartless of you, under the circumstances. That is a very different thing.

ALGERNON
That may be. But the muffins are the same. [He seizes the muffin-dish from JACK.]

JACK
Algy, I wish to goodness you would go.