Quote 21
THE NOTE TAKER. You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party. I could even get her a place as lady's maid or shop assistant, which requires better English. That's the sort of thing I do for commercial millionaires. And on the profits of it I do genuine scientific work in phonetics, and a little as a poet on Miltonic lines. (1.129)
Higgins suggests that being a maid or a shop assistant requires better English than being an aristocrat. Is he joking? Perhaps a little.
Quote 22
LIZA. I had a good mind to break it. I didn't know which way to look. But I hung a towel over it, I did.
HIGGINS. Over what?
MRS. PEARCE. Over the looking-glass, sir.
HIGGINS. Doolittle: you have brought your daughter up too strictly.
DOOLITTLE. Me! I never brought her up at all, except to give her a lick of a strap now and again. Don't put it on me, Governor. She ain't accustomed to it, you see: that's all. But she'll soon pick up your free-and-easy ways.
LIZA. I'm a good girl, I am; and I won't pick up no free and easy ways. (2.308-313)
Doolittle equates wealth with laziness and wastefulness, and Eliza's own poverty seems to have instilled in her a sense of modesty. She will not so much as look in the mirror.
Quote 23
HIGGINS. The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another. (5.197)
Higgins claims that the key to acting correctly is treating all people in the same way, acting as if class distinctions did not exist. He thinks that the only society that matters is the society of human souls, to which all men belong.
Quote 24
HIGGINS. There! As the girl very properly says, Garn! Married indeed! Don't you know that a woman of that class looks a worn out drudge of fifty a year after she's married. (2.105)
Higgins's views are stereotypical, but his comments do speak to the difficulties which come with raising a family in poverty.
Quote 25
HIGGINS. Very well, then, what on earth is all this fuss about? The girl doesn't belong to anybody—is no use to anybody but me. [He goes to Mrs. Pearce and begins coaxing]. You can adopt her, Mrs. Pearce: I'm sure a daughter would be a great amusement to you. Now don't make any more fuss. Take her downstairs; and— (2.119)
Higgins, in saying that Eliza doesn't "belong" to anyone, implies that a young woman should "belong" to someone; he also assumes that Mrs. Pearce, being a woman, would love to have a daughter to take care of.
Quote 26
HIGGINS [dogmatically, lifting himself on his hands to the level of the piano, and sitting on it with a bounce] Well, I haven't. I find that the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damned nuisance. I find that the moment I let myself make friends with a woman, I become selfish and tyrannical. Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at one thing and you're driving at another […] Lord knows! I suppose the woman wants to live her own life; and the man wants to live his; and each tries to drag the other on to the wrong track. (2.161; 163)
Higgins is convinced that not only do women cause him trouble, but that they cause trouble in any and every case; he suggests that men and women are basically incompatible.
Quote 27
HIGGINS [a genial afterthought occurring to him] I daresay my mother could find some chap or other who would do very well—
LIZA. We were above that at the corner of Tottenham Court Road.
HIGGINS [waking up] What do you mean?
LIZA. I sold flowers. I didn't sell myself. Now you've made a lady of me I'm not fit to sell anything else. I wish you'd left me where you found me. (4.63-66)
Eliza tells Higgins two things: that she has no place in society anymore and that lower-class women have a stronger sense of morality than most "ladies." She and her fellow flower girls would never have sold themselves into marriage.
Quote 28
THE NOTE TAKER. Oh yes. Quite a fat one. This is an age of upstarts. Men begin in Kentish Town with 80 pounds a year, and end in Park Lane with a hundred thousand. They want to drop Kentish Town; but they give themselves away every time they open their mouths. Now I can teach them— (1.120)
Higgins suggests that he is living in a time when dreams can come true, when rags-to-riches stories are, well, more than just stories. At the same time, he acknowledges that the movement from Kentish Town to Park Lane is not only a matter of making a fortune.
Quote 29
HIGGINS [becoming excited as the idea grows on him] What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn't come every day. I shall make a duchess of this draggletailed guttersnipe. (2.82)
Higgins himself seems to be a big dreamer. He is as much interested in the idea of "taking a chance" and dreaming big as he is in the job he takes on.
Quote 30
HIGGINS. Playing! The hardest job I ever tackled: make no mistake about that, mother. But you have no idea how frightfully interesting it is to take a human being and change her into a quite different human being by creating a new speech for her. It's filling up the deepest gulf that separates class from class and soul from soul. (2.223)
Higgins's task becomes more than a simple matter or training, or a test of skill. He is totally wrapped up in the idea of bringing together humankind, one person at a time.
Quote 31
HIGGINS. It was a silly notion: the whole thing has been a bore.
PICKERING. Oh come! the garden party was frightfully exciting. My heart began beating like anything.
HIGGINS. Yes, for the first three minutes. But when I saw we were going to win hands down, I felt like a bear in a cage, hanging about doing nothing […] No more artificial duchesses. The whole thing has been simple purgatory. (4.21-23)
Just as soon as he has achieved his goal, Higgins has lost interest in his achievement. He seems to confirm that old saying: "it's about the journey, not the destination."