Pygmalion............................................................................................................................................................1

AS will be seen later on, Pygmalion needs, not a preface, but a sequel, which I have supplied in its due place.

The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. They spell it so

abominably that no man can teach himself what it sounds like. It is impossible for an Englishman to open his

mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him. German and Spanish are accessible to

foreigners: English is not accessible even to Englishmen. The reformer England needs today is an energetic

phonetic enthusiast: that is why I have made such a one the hero of a popular play. There have been heroes of

that kind crying in the wilderness for many years past. When I became interested in the subject towards the

end of the eighteenseventies, Melville Bell was dead; but Alexander J. Ellis was still a living patriarch, with

an impressive head always covered by a velvet skull cap, for which he would apologize to public meetings in

a very courtly manner. He and Tito Pagliardini, another phonetic veteran, were men whom it was impossible

to dislike. Henry Sweet, then a young man, lacked their sweetness of character: he was about as conciliatory

to conventional mortals as Ibsen or Samuel Butler. His great ability as a phonetician (he was, I think, the best

of them all at his job) would have entitled him to high official recognition, and perhaps enabled him to

popularize his subject, but for his Satanic contempt for all academic dignitaries and persons in general who

thought more of Greek than of phonetics. Once, in the days when the Imperial Institute rose in South

Kensington, and Joseph Chamberlain was booming the Empire, I induced the editor of a leading monthly

review to commission an article from Sweet on the imperial importance of his subject. When it arrived, it

contained nothing but a savagely derisive attack on a professor of language and literature whose chair Sweet

regarded as proper to a phonetic expert only. The article, being libelous, had to be returned as impossible; and

I had to renounce my dream of dragging its author into the limelight. When I met him afterwards, for the first

time for many years, I found to my astonishment that he, who had been a quite tolerably presentable young

man, had actually managed by sheer scorn to alter his personal appearance until he had become a sort of

walking repudiation of Oxford and all its traditions. It must have been largely in his own despite that he was

squeezed into something called a Readership of phonetics there. The future of phonetics rests probably with

his pupils, who all swore by him; but nothing could bring the man himself into any sort of compliance with

the university, to which he nevertheless clung by divine right in an intensely Oxonian way. I daresay his

papers, if he has left any, include some satires that may be published without too destructive results fifty

years hence. He was, I believe, not in the least an illnatured man: very much the opposite, I should say; but he

Those who knew him will recognize in my third act the allusion to the patent shorthand in which he used to

write postcards, and which may be acquired from a four and sixpenny manual published by the Clarendon

Press. The postcards which Mrs. Higgins describes are such as I have received from Sweet. I would decipher

a sound which a cockney would represent by zerr, and a Frenchman by seu, and then write demanding with

some heat what on earth it meant. Sweet, with boundless contempt for my stupidity, would reply that it not

only meant but obviously was the word Result, as no other word containing that sound, and capable of

making sense with the context, existed in any language spoken on earth. That less expert mortals should

require fuller indications was beyond Sweet's patience. Therefore, though the whole point of his "Current

Shorthand" is that it can express every sound in the language perfectly, vowels as well as consonants, and that

your hand has to make no stroke except the easy and current ones with which you write m, n, and u, l, p, and

q, scribbling them at whatever angle comes easiest to you, his unfortunate determination to make this

remarkable and quite legible script serve also as a shorthand reduced it in his own practice to the most

inscrutable of cryptograms. His true objective was the provision of a full, accurate, legible script for our

noble but illdressed language; but he was led past that by his contempt for the popular Pitman system of

shorthand, which he called the Pitfall system. The triumph of Pitman was a triumph of business organization:

there was a weekly paper to persuade you to learn Pitman: there were cheap textbooks and exercise books

and transcripts of speeches for you to copy, and schools where experienced teachers coached you up to the

necessary proficiency. Sweet could not organize his market in that fashion. He might as well have been the

Sybil who tore up the leaves of prophecy that nobody would attend to. The four and sixpenny manual,

mostly in his lithographed handwriting, that was never vulgarly advertized, may perhaps some day be taken

up by a syndicate and pushed upon the public as The Times pushed the Encyclop�dia Britannica; but until

then it will certainly not prevail against Pitman. I have bought three copies of it during my lifetime; and I am

informed by the publishers that its cloistered existence is still a steady and healthy one. I actually learned the

system two several times; and yet the shorthand in which I am writing these lines is Pitman's. And the reason

is, that my secretary cannot transcribe Sweet, having been perforce taught in the schools of Pitman.

Therefore, Sweet railed at Pitman as vainly as Thersites railed at Ajax: his raillery, however it may have

Pygmalion Higgins is not a portrait of Sweet, to whom the adventure of Eliza Doolittle would have been

impossible; still, as will be seen, there are touches of Sweet in the play. With Higgins's physique and

temperament Sweet might have set the Thames on fire. As it was, he impressed himself professionally on

Europe to an extent that made his comparative personal obscurity, and the failure of Oxford to do justice to

his eminence, a puzzle to foreign specialists in his subject. I do not blame Oxford, because I think Oxford is

quite right in demanding a certain social amenity from its nurslings (heaven knows it is not exorbitant in its

requirements!); for although I well know how hard it is for a man of genius with a seriously underrated

subject to maintain serene and kindly relations with the men who underrate it, and who keep all the best

places for less important subjects which they profess without originality and sometimes without much

capacity for them, still, if he overwhelms them with wrath and disdain, he cannot expect them to heap honors

Of the later generations of phoneticians I know little. Among them towers the Poet Laureate, to whom

perhaps Higgins may owe his Miltonic sympathies, though here again I must disclaim all portraiture. But if

the play makes the public aware that there are such people as phoneticians, and that they are among the most

I wish to boast that Pygmalion has been an extremely successful play all over Europe and North America as

well as at home. It is so intensely and deliberately didactic, and its subject is esteemed so dry, that I delight in

throwing it at the heads of the wiseacres who repeat the parrot cry that art should never be didactic. It goes to

Finally, and for the encouragement of people troubled with accents that cut them off from all high

employment, I may add that the change wrought by Professor Higgins in the flower girl is neither impossible

nor uncommon. The modern concierge's daughter who fulfils her ambition by playing the Queen of Spain in

Ruy Blas at the Th��tre Fran�ais is only one of many thousands of men and women who have sloughed off

their native dialects and acquired a new tongue. But the thing has to be done scientifically, or the last state of

the aspirant may be worse than the first. An honest and natural slum dialect is more tolerable than the attempt

of a phonetically untaught person to imitate the vulgar dialect of the golf club; and I am sorry to say that in

spite of the efforts of our Academy of Dramatic Art, there is still too much sham golfing English on our

Covent Garden at 11.15 p.m. Torrents of heavy summer rain. Cab whistles blowing frantically in all

directions. Pedestrians running for shelter into the market and under the portico of St. Paul's Church, where

there are already several people, among them a lady and her daughter in evening dress. They are all peering

out gloomily at the rain, except one man with his back turned to the rest, who seems wholly preoccupied with

THE DAUGHTER[in the space between the central pillars, close to the one on her left] I'm getting chilled to

THE MOTHER[On her daughter's right] Not so long. But he ought to have got us a cab by this.

A BYSTANDER[on the lady's right] He wont get no cab not until halfpast eleven, missus, when they come

THE MOTHER. But we must have a cab. We cant stand here until halfpast eleven. It's too bad.

THE DAUGHTER. If Freddy had a bit of gumption, he would have got one at the theatre door.

Freddy rushes in out of the rain from the Southampton Street side, and comes between them closing a

dripping umbrella. He is a young man of twenty, in evening dress, very wet around the ankles.

FREDDY. I tell you theyre all engaged. The rain was so sudden: nobody was prepared; and everybody had to

take a cab. Ive been to Charing Cross one way and nearly to Ludgate Circus the other; and they were all

FREDDY. I tried as far as Charing Cross Station. Did you expect me to walk to Hammersmith?

THE MOTHER. You really are very helpless, Freddy. Go again; and dont come back until you have found a

THE DAUGHTER. And what about us? Are we to stay here all night in this draught, with next to nothing on.

FREDDY. Oh, very well: I'll go, I'll go. [He opens his umbrella and dashes off Strandwards, but comes into

collision with a flower girl, who is hurrying in for shelter, knocking her basket out of her hands. A blinding

flash of lightning, followed instantly by a rattling peal of thunder, orchestrates the incident].

THE FLOWER GIRL[picking up her scattered flowers and replacing them in the basket] Theres menners f'

yer! Teoo banches o voylets trod into the mad. [She sits down on the plinth of the column, sorting her

flowers, on the lady's right. She is not at all an attractive person. She is perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty,

hardly older. She wears a little sailor hat of black straw that has long been exposed to the dust and soot of

London and has seldom if ever been brushed. Her hair needs washing rather badly: its mousy color can

hardly be natural. She wears a shoddy black coat that reaches nearly to her knees and is shaped to her waist.

She has a brown skirt with a coarse apron. Her boots are much the worse for wear. She is no doubt as clean

as she can afford to be; but compared to the ladies she is very dirty. Her features are no worse than theirs;

but their condition leaves something to be desired; and she needs the services of a dentist].

THE FLOWER GIRL. Ow, eez yeooa san, is e? Wal, fewd dan y' deooty bawmz a mather should, eed now

bettern to spawl a pore gel's flahrzn than ran awy athaht pyin. Will yeoo py me f'them? [Here, with

apologies, this desperate attempt to represent her dialect without a phonetic alphabet must be abandoned as

THE MOTHER[to Clara] Give it to me. [Clara parts reluctantly]. Now [to the girl] This is for your flowers.

THE DAUGHTER. Make her give you the change. These things are only a penny a bunch.

THE FLOWER GIRL[protesting] Whos trying to deceive you? I called him Freddy or Charlie same as you

might yourself if you was talking to a stranger and wished to be pleasant. [She sits down beside her basket].

THE DAUGHTER. Sixpence thrown away! Really, mamma, you might have spared Freddy that. [She retreats

An elderly gentleman of the amiable military type rushes into shelter, and closes a dripping umbrella. He is

in the same plight as Freddy, very wet about the ankles. He is in evening dress, with a light overcoat. He

THE GENTLEMAN. I'm afraid not. It started worse than ever about two minutes ago. [He goes to the plinth

beside the flower girl; puts up his foot on it; and stoops to turn down his trouser ends].

THE FLOWER GIRL[taking advantage of the military gentleman's proximity to establish friendly relations

with him]. If it's worse it's a sign it's nearly over. So cheer up, Captain; and buy a flower off a poor girl.

THE FLOWER GIRL. Garn! Oh do buy a flower off me, Captain. I can change halfacrown. Take this for

THE GENTLEMAN. Now dont be troublesome: theres a good girl. [Trying his pockets] I really havnt any

change Stop: heres three hapence, if thats any use to you [he retreats to the other pillar].

THE FLOWER GIRL[disappointed, but thinking three halfpence better than nothing] Thank you, sir.

THE BYSTANDER[to the girl] You be careful: give him a flower for it. Theres a bloke here behind taking

down every blessed word youre saying. [All turn to the man who is taking notes].

THE FLOWER GIRL[springing up terrified] I aint done nothing wrong by speaking to the gentleman. Ive a

right to sell flowers if I keep off the kerb. [Hysterically] I'm a respectable girl: so help me, I never spoke to

him except to ask him to buy a flower off me. [General hubbub, mostly sympathetic to the flower girl, but

deprecating her excessive sensibility. Cries of Dont start hollerin. Whos hurting you? Nobody's going to

touch you. Whats the good of fussing? Steady on. Easy, easy, etc., come from the elderly staid spectators,

who pat her comfortingly. Less patient ones bid her shut her head, or ask her roughly what is wrong with her.

A remoter group, not knowing what the matter is, crowd in and increase the noise with question and

answer: Whats the row? What she do? Where is he? A tec taking her down. What! him? Yes: him over there:

Took money off the gentleman, etc. The flower girl, distraught and mobbed, breaks through them to the

gentleman, crying wildly] Oh, sir, dont let him charge me. You dunno what it means to me. Theyll take away

THE NOTE TAKER[coming forward on her right, the rest crowding after him] There, there, there, there! whos

THE BYSTANDER. It's all right: hes a gentleman: look at his boots. [Explaining to the note taker] She thought

THE BYSTANDER[inapt at definition] It's a well, it's a copper's nark, as you might say. What else would you

THE NOTE TAKER[overbearing but goodhumored] Oh, shut up, shut up. Do I look like a policeman?

THE FLOWER GIRL[far from reassured] Then what did you take down my words for? How do I know

whether you took me down right? You just shew me what youve wrote about me. [The note taker opens his

book and holds it steadily under her nose, though the pressure of the mob trying to read it over his shoulders

would upset a weaker man]. Whats that? That aint proper writing. I cant read that.

THE NOTE TAKER. I can. [Reads, reproducing her pronunciation exactly] "Cheer ap, Keptin; n' baw ya flahr

THE FLOWER GIRL[much distressed] It's because I called him Captain. I meant no harm. [To the

THE GENTLEMAN. Charge! I make no charge. [To the note taker] Really, sir, if you are a detective, you need

not begin protecting me against molestation by young women until I ask you. Anybody could see that the girl

THE BYSTANDERS GENERALLY[demonstrating against police espionage] Course they could. What business

is it of yours? You mind your own affairs. He wants promotion, he does. Taking down people's words! Girl

never said a word to him. What harm if she did? Nice thing a girl cant shelter from the rain without being

insulted, etc., etc., etc. [She is conducted by the more sympathetic demonstrators back to her plinth, where

THE BYSTANDER. He aint a tec. Hes a blooming busybody: thats what he is. I tell you, look at his boots.

THE NOTE TAKER[turning on him genially] And how are all your people down at Selsey?

THE NOTE TAKER. Never you mind. They did. [To the girl] How do you come to be up so far east? You were

THE FLOWER GIRL[appalled] Oh, what harm is there in my leaving Lisson Grove? It wasnt fit for a pig to

THE GENTLEMAN[to the girl] Come, come! he cant touch you: you have a right to live where you please.

A SARCASTIC BYSTANDER[thrusting himself between the note taker and the gentleman] Park Lane, for

THE FLOWER GIRL[subsiding into a brooding melancholy over her basket, and talking very lowspiritedly to

THE SARCASTIC ONE[amazed] Well, who said I didnt? Bly me! You know everything, you do.

THE FLOWER GIRL[still nursing her sense of injury] Aint no call to meddle with me, he aint.

THE BYSTANDER[to her] Of course he aint. Dont you stand it from him. [To the note taker] See here: what

call have you to know about people what never offered to meddle with you? Wheres your warrant?

SEVERAL BYSTANDERS [encouraged by this seeming point of law] Yes: wheres your warrant?

THE FLOWER GIRL. Let him say what he likes. I dont want to have no truck with him.

THE BYSTANDER. You take us for dirt under your feet, dont you? Catch you taking liberties with a gentleman!

THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER. Yes: tell h i m where he come from if you want to go fortunetelling.

THE GENTLEMAN. Quite right. [Great laughter. Reaction in the note taker's favor. Exclamations of He knows

all about it. Told him proper. Hear him tell the toff where he come from? etc.]. May I ask, sir, do you do this

The rain has stopped; and the persons on the outside of the crowd begin to drop off.

THE FLOWER GIRL[resenting the reaction] Hes no gentleman, he aint, to interfere with a poor girl.

THE DAUGHTER[out of patience, pushing her way rudely to the front and displacing the gentleman, who

politely retires to the other side of the pillar] What on earth is Freddy doing? I shall get pneumonia if I stay

THE NOTE TAKER[to himself, hastily making a note of her pronunciation of "monia"] Earlscourt.

THE DAUGHTER[violently] Will you please keep your impertinent remarks to yourself?

THE NOTE TAKER. Did I say that out loud? I didnt mean to. I beg your pardon. Your mother's Epsom,

THE MOTHER[advancing between her daughter and the note taker] How very curious! I was brought up in

THE NOTE TAKER[uproariously amused] Ha! ha! What a devil of a name! Excuse me. [To the

THE MOTHER. Oh, please, please Clara. [Her daughter repudiates her with an angry shrug and retires

haughtily.] We should be so grateful to you, sir, if you found us a cab. [The note taker produces a whistle].

THE FLOWER GIRL[still preoccupied with her wounded feelings] Hes no right to take away my character. My

THE NOTE TAKER. I dont know whether youve noticed it; but the rain stopped about two minutes ago.

THE BYSTANDER. So it has. Why didnt you say so before? and us losing our time listening to your silliness.

THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER. I can tell where you come from. You come from Anwell. Go back there.

THE SARCASTIC BYSTANDER[affecting great distinction of speech] Thenk you, teacher. Haw haw! So long

THE MOTHER. It's quite fine now, Clara. We can walk to a motor bus. Come. [She gathers her skirts above

THE DAUGHTER. But the cab [her mother is out of hearing]. Oh, how tiresome! [She follows angrily].

All the rest have gone except the note taker, the gentleman, and the flower girl, who sits arranging her

THE FLOWER GIRL. Poor girl! Hard enough for her to live without being worrited and chivied.

THE GENTLEMAN[returning to his former place on the note taker's left] How do you do it, if I may ask?

THE NOTE TAKER. Simply phonetics. The science of speech. Thats my profession: also my hobby. Happy is

the man who can make a living by his hobby! You can spot an Irishman or a Yorkshireman by his brogue.

I can place any man within six miles. I can place him within two miles in London. Sometimes within two

THE NOTE TAKER. Oh yes. Quite a fat one. This is an age of upstarts. Men begin in Kentish Town with �80 a

year, and end in Park Lane with a hundred thousand. They want to drop Kentish Town; but they give

THE NOTE TAKER[explosively] Woman: cease this detestable boohooing instantly; or else seek the shelter of

THE FLOWER GIRL[with feeble defiance] Ive a right to be here if I like, same as you.

THE NOTE TAKER. A woman who utters such depressing and disgusting sounds has no right to be

anywhere no right to live. Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate

speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespear and Milton and The Bible; and dont sit there

THE FLOWER GIRL[quite overwhelmed, and looking up at him in mingled wonder and deprecation without

THE NOTE TAKER[whipping out his book] Heavens! what a sound! [He writes; then holds out the book and

THE FLOWER GIRL[tickled by the performance, and laughing in spite of herself] Garn!

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. Thats the sort of thing I do for commercial millionaires. And on the profits of it I do genuine

THE NOTE TAKER[eagerly] Are you? Do you know Colonel Pickering, the author of Spoken Sanscrit?

PICKERING. I'm at the Carlton. Come with me now and lets have a jaw over some supper.

THE FLOWER GIRL[to Pickering, as he passes her] Buy a flower, kind gentleman. I'm short for my lodging.

HIGGINS[shocked at girl's mendacity] Liar. You said you could change halfacrown.

THE FLOWER GIRL[rising in desperation] You ought to be stuffed with nails, you ought. [Flinging the basket

HIGGINS[hearing in it the voice of God, rebuking him for his Pharisaic want of charity to the poor girl] A

reminder. [He raises his hat solemnly; then throws a handful of money into the basket and follows Pickering].

THE FLOWER GIRL[picking up a halfcrown] Ahowooh! [Picking up a couple of florins] Aaahowooh!

[Picking up several coins] Aaaaaahowooh! [Picking up a halfsovereign] Aaaaaaaaaaaahowooh!!!

FREDDY[springing out of a taxicab] Got one at last. Hallo! [To the girl] Where are the two ladies that were

THE FLOWER GIRL[with grandeur] Never you mind, young man. I'm going home in a taxi. [She sails off to

the cab. The driver puts his hand behind him and holds the door firmly shut against her. Quite understanding

his mistrust, she shews him her handful of money.] Eightpence aint no object to me, Charlie. [He grins and

opens the door]. Angel Court, Drury Lane, round the corner of Micklejohn's oil shop. Lets see how fast you

can make her hop it. [She gets in and pulls the door to with a slam as the taxicab starts].

Next day at 11 a.m. Higgins's laboratory in Wimpole Street. It is a room on the first floor, looking on the

street, and was meant for the drawingroom. The double doors are in the middle of the back wall; and

persons entering find in the corner to their right two tall file cabinets at right angles to one another against

the walls. In this corner stands a flat writingtable, on which are a phonograph, a laryngoscope, a row of

tiny organ pipes with a bellows, a set of lamp chimneys for singing flames with burners attached to a gas

plug in the wall by an indiarubber tube, several tuningforks of different sizes, a lifesize image of half a

human head, showing in section the vocal organs, and a box containing a supply of wax cylinders for the

Further down the room, on the same side, is a fireplace, with a comfortable leathercovered easychair at

the side of the hearth nearest the door, and a coalscuttle. There is a clock on the mantelpiece. Between the

On the other side of the central door, to the left of the visitor, is a cabinet of shallow drawers. On it is a

telephone and the telephone directory. The corner beyond, and most of the side wall, is occupied by a grand

piano, with the keyboard at the end furthest from the door, and a bench for the player extending the full

length of the keyboard. On the piano is a dessert dish heaped with fruit and sweets, mostly chocolates.

The middle of the room is clear. Besides the easychair, the piano bench, and two chairs at the phonograph

table, there is one stray chair. It stands near the fireplace. On the walls, engravings; mostly Piranesis and

Pickering is seated at the table, putting down some cards and a tuningfork which he has been using.

Higgins is standing up near him, closing two or three file drawers which are hanging out. He appears in the

morning light as a robust, vital, appetizing sort of man of forty or thereabouts, dressed in a

professionallooking black frockcoat with a white linen collar and black silk tie. He is of the energetic,

scientific type, heartily, even violently interested in everything that can be studied as a scientific subject, and

careless about himself and other people, including their feelings. He is, in fact, but for his years and size,

rather like a very impetuous baby "taking notice" eagerly and loudly, and requiring almost as much watching

to keep him out of unintended mischief. His manner varies from genial bullying when he is in a good humor

to stormy petulance when anything goes wrong; but he is so entirely frank and void of malice that he remains

PICKERING[rising and coming to the fireplace, where he plants himself with his back to the fire] No, thank

HIGGINS[following him, and standing beside him on his left] Tired of listening to sounds?

PICKERING. Yes. It's a fearful strain. I rather fancied myself because I can pronounce twentyfour distinct

vowel sounds; but your hundred and thirty beat me. I cant hear a bit of difference between most of them.

HIGGINS[chuckling, and going over to the piano to eat sweets] Oh, that comes with practice. You hear no

difference at first; but you keep on listening, and presently you find theyre all as different as A from B. [Mrs.

MRS. PEARCE[hesitating, evidently perplexed] A young woman wants to see you, sir.

MRS. PEARCE. Well, sir, she says youll be glad to see her when you know what shes come about. Shes quite

a common girl, sir. Very common indeed. I should have sent her away, only I thought perhaps you wanted

her to talk into your machines. I hope Ive not done wrong; but really you see such queer people

MRS. PEARCE. Oh, something dreadful, sir, really. I dont know how you can take an interest in it.

HIGGINS[to Pickering] Lets have her up. Shew her up, Mrs. Pearce [he rushes across to his working table

MRS. PEARCE[only half resigned to it] Very well, sir. It's for you to say. [She goes downstairs].

HIGGINS. This is rather a bit of luck. I'll shew you how I make records. We'll set her talking; and I'll take it

down first in Bell's visible Speech; then in broad Romic; and then we'll get her on the phonograph so that you

The flower girl enters in state. She has a hat with three ostrich feathers, orange, skyblue, and red. She has a

nearly clean apron, and the shoddy coat has been tidied a little. The pathos of this deplorable figure, with its

innocent vanity and consequential air, touches Pickering, who has already straightened himself in the

presence of Mrs. Pearce. But as to Higgins, the only distinction he makes between men and women is that

when he is neither bullying nor exclaiming to the heavens against some featherweight cross, he coaxes

HIGGINS[brusquely, recognizing her with unconcealed disappointment, and at once, babylike, making an

intolerable grievance of it] Why, this is the girl I jotted down last night. Shes no use: Ive got all the records I

want of the Lisson Grove lingo; and I'm not going to waste another cylinder on it. [To the girl] Be off with

THE FLOWER GIRL. Dont you be so saucy. You aint heard what I come for yet. [To Mrs. Pearce, who is

MRS. PEARCE. Nonsense, girl! what do you think a gentleman like Mr. Higgins cares what you came in?

THE FLOWER GIRL. Oh, we are proud! He aint above giving lessons, not him: I heard him say so. Well, I aint

come here to ask for any compliment; and if my money's not good enough I can go elsewhere.

THE FLOWER GIRL. Good enough for yeoo. Now you know, dont you? I'm come to have lessons, I am. And

HIGGINS[stupent] W e l l ! ! ! [Recovering his breath with a gasp] What do you expect me to say to you?

THE FLOWER GIRL. Well, if you was a gentleman, you might ask me to sit down, I think. Dont I tell you I'm

HIGGINS. Pickering: shall we ask this baggage to sit down or shall we throw her out of the window?

bay] Ahahahowowowoo! [Wounded and whimpering] I wont be called a baggage when Ive offered

THE FLOWER GIRL. I want to be a lady in a flower shop stead of selling at the corner of Tottenham Court

Road. But they wont take me unless I can talk more genteel. He said he could teach me. Well, here I am

MRS. PEARCE. How can you be such a foolish ignorant girl as to think you could afford to pay Mr. Higgins?

THE FLOWER GIRL. Why shouldnt I? I know what lessons cost as well as you do; and I'm ready to pay.

THE FLOWER GIRL[coming back to him, triumphant] Now youre talking! I thought youd come off it when

you saw a chance of getting back a bit of what you chucked at me last night. [Confidentially] Youd had a

MRS. PEARCE[severely] Sit down, girl. Do as youre told. [She places the stray chair near the hearthrug

between Higgins and Pickering, and stands behind it waiting for the girl to sit down].

LIZA[coyly] Dont mind if I do. [She sits down. Pickering returns to the hearthrug].

HIGGINS. Come back to business. How much do you propose to pay me for the lessons?

LIZA. Oh, I know whats right. A lady friend of mine gets French lessons for eighteenpence an hour from a

real French gentleman. Well, you wouldnt have the face to ask me the same for teaching me my own

language as you would for French; so I wont give more than a shilling. Take it or leave it.

HIGGINS[walking up and down the room, rattling his keys and his cash in his pockets] You know, Pickering,

if you consider a shilling, not as a simple shilling, but as a percentage of this girl's income, it works out as

HIGGINS. Figure it out. A millionaire has about �150 a day. She earns about halfacrown.

HIGGINS. [continuing] She offers me twofifths of her day's income for a lesson. Twofifths of a

millionaire's income for a day would be somewhere about �60. It's handsome. By George, it's enormous! it's

LIZA[rising, terrified] Sixty pounds! What are you talking about? I never offered you sixty pounds. Where

MRS. PEARCE. Dont cry, you silly girl. Sit down. Nobody is going to touch your money.

HIGGINS. Somebody is going to touch you, with a broomstick, if you dont stop snivelling. Sit down.

HIGGINS. If I decide to teach you, I'll be worse than two fathers to you. Here [he offers her his silk

HIGGINS. To wipe your eyes. To wipe any part of your face that feels moist. Remember: thats your

handkerchief; and thats your sleeve. Dont mistake the one for the other if you wish to become a lady in a

MRS. PEARCE. It's no use talking to her like that, Mr. Higgins: she doesnt understand you. Besides, youre

LIZA[snatching it] Here! You give me that handkerchief. He give it to me, not to you.

PICKERING[laughing] He did. I think it must be regarded as her property, Mrs. Pearce.

PICKERING. Higgins: I'm interested. What about the ambassador's garden party? I'll say youre the greatest

teacher alive if you make that good. I'll bet you all the expenses of the experiment you cant do it. And I'll pay

HIGGINS[tempted, looking at her] It's almost irresistible. Shes so deliciously low so horribly dirty

LIZA[protesting extremely] Ahahahahowowoooo!!! I aint dirty: I washed my face and hands afore I

MRS. PEARCE[uneasy] Oh, dont say that, sir: theres more ways than one of turning a girl's head; and nobody

can do it better than Mr. Higgins, though he may not always mean it. I do hope, sir, you wont encourage him

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 doesnt come every day. I shall make a duchess of this

HIGGINS[carried away] Yes: in six months in three if she has a good ear and a quick tongue I'll take her

anywhere and pass her off as anything. We'll start today: now! this moment! Take her away and clean her,

Mrs. Pearce. Monkey Brand, if it wont come off any other way. Is there a good fire in the kitchen?

HIGGINS[storming on] Take all her clothes off and burn them. Ring up Whiteley or somebody for new ones.

LIZA. Youre no gentleman, youre not, to talk of such things. I'm a good girl, I am; and I know what the like

HIGGINS. We want none of your Lisson Grove prudery here, young woman. Youve got to learn to behave like

LIZA[springing up and running between Pickering and Mrs. Pearce for protection] No! I'll call the police, I

MRS. PEARCE[resolutely] You must be reasonable, Mr. Higgins: really you must. You cant walk over

Higgins, thus scolded, subsides. The hurricane is succeeded by a zephyr of amiable surprise.

HIGGINS[with professional exquisiteness of modulation] I walk over everybody! My dear Mrs. Pearce, my

dear Pickering, I never had the slightest intention of walking over anyone. All I propose is that we should be

kind to this poor girl. We must help her to prepare and fit herself for her new station in life. If I did not

express myself clearly it was because I did not wish to hurt her delicacy, or yours.

MRS. PEARCE. Well, the matter is, sir, that you cant take a girl up like that as if you were picking up a pebble

MRS. PEARCE. Why not! But you dont know anything about her. What about her parents? She may be

HIGGINS. There! As the girl very properly says, Garn! Married indeed! Dont you know that a woman of that

HIGGINS[suddenly resorting to the most thrillingly beautiful low tones in his best elocutionary style] By

George, Eliza, the streets will be strewn with the bodies of men shooting themselves for your sake before Ive

LIZA[rising and squaring herself determinedly] I'm going away. He's off his chump, he is. I dont want no

HIGGINS[wounded in his tenderest point by her insensibility to his elocution] Oh, indeed! I'm mad, am I?

Very well, Mrs. Pearce: you neednt order the new clothes for her. Throw her out.

MRS. PEARCE. You see now what comes of being saucy. [Indicating the door] This way, please.

LIZA[almost in tears] I didnt want no clothes. I wouldnt have taken them [she throws away the

HIGGINS[deftly retrieving the handkerchief and intercepting her on her reluctant way to the door] Youre an

ungrateful wicked girl. This is my return for offering to take you out of the gutter and dress you beautifully

MRS. PEARCE. Stop, Mr. Higgins. I wont allow it. It's you that are wicked. Go home to your parents, girl; and

LIZA. I aint got no parents. They told me I was big enough to earn my own living and turned me out.

LIZA. I aint got no mother. Her that turned me out was my sixth stepmother. But I done without them. And

HIGGINS. Very well, then, what on earth is all this fuss about? The girl doesnt 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 dont make any more fuss. Take her downstairs; and

MRS. PEARCE. But whats to become of her? Is she to be paid anything? Do be sensible, sir.

HIGGINS. Oh, pay her whatever is necessary: put it down in the housekeeping book. [Impatiently] What on

earth will she want with money? She'll have her food and her clothes. She'll only drink if you give her money.

LIZA[turning on him] Oh you are a brute. It's a lie: nobody ever saw the sign of liquor on me. [She goes back

PICKERING[in goodhumored remonstrance] Does it occur to you, Higgins, that the girl has some feelings?

HIGGINS[looking critically at her] Oh no, I dont think so. Not any feelings that we need bother about.

MRS. PEARCE. Will you please keep to the point, Mr. Higgins. I want to know on what terms the girl is to be

here. Is she to have any wages? And what is to become of her when youve finished your teaching? You must

HIGGINS[impatiently] Whats to become of her if I leave her in the gutter? Tell me that, Mrs. Pearce.

HIGGINS. Well, when Ive done with her, we can throw her back into the gutter; and then it will be her own

LIZA. Oh, youve no feeling heart in you: you dont care for nothing but yourself [she rises and takes the floor

resolutely]. Here! Ive had enough of this. I'm going [making for the door]. You ought to be ashamed of

HIGGINS[snatching a chocolate cream from the piano, his eyes suddenly beginning to twinkle with

LIZA[halting, tempted] How do I know what might be in them? Ive heard of girls being drugged by the like

Higgins whips out his penknife; cuts a chocolate in two; puts one half into his mouth and bolts it; and offers

HIGGINS. Pledge of good faith, Eliza. I eat one half: you eat the other. [Liza opens her mouth to retort: he

pops the half chocolate into it]. You shall have boxes of them, barrels of them, every day. You shall live on

LIZA[who has disposed of the chocolate after being nearly choked by it] I wouldnt have ate it, only I'm too

HIGGINS. You have, Eliza; and in future you shall have as many taxis as you want. You shall go up and down

MRS. PEARCE. Mr. Higgins: youre tempting the girl. It's not right. She should think of the future.

HIGGINS. At her age! Nonsense! Time enough to think of the future when you havnt any future to think of.

No, Eliza: do as this lady does: think of other people's futures; but never think of your own. Think of

LIZA. No: I dont want no gold and no diamonds. I'm a good girl, I am. [She sits down again, with an attempt

HIGGINS. You shall remain so, Eliza, under the care of Mrs. Pearce. And you shall marry an officer in the

Guards, with a beautiful moustache: the son of a marquis, who will disinherit him for marrying you, but will

PICKERING. Excuse me, Higgins; but I really must interfere. Mrs. Pearce is quite right. If this girl is to put

herself in your hands for six months for an experiment in teaching, she must understand thoroughly what shes

HIGGINS. How can she? Shes incapable of understanding anything. Besides, do any of us understand what we

HIGGINS. There! Thats all you get out of Eliza. Ahahowoo! No use explaining. As a military man you

ought to know that. Give her her orders: thats what she wants. Eliza: you are to live here for the next six

months, learning how to speak beautifully, like a lady in a florist's shop. If youre good and do whatever youre

told, you shall sleep in a proper bedroom, and have lots to eat, and money to buy chocolates and take rides in

taxis. If youre naughty and idle you will sleep in the back kitchen among the black beetles, and be walloped

by Mrs. Pearce with a broomstick. At the end of six months you shall go to Buckingham Palace in a carriage,

beautifully dressed. If the King finds out youre not a lady, you will be taken by the police to the Tower of

London, where your head will be cut off as a warning to other presumptuous flower girls. If you are not

found out, you shall have a present of sevenandsixpence to start life with as a lady in a shop. If you refuse

this offer you will be a most ungrateful and wicked girl; and the angels will weep for you. [To

Pickering] Now are you satisfied, Pickering? [To Mrs. Pearce] Can I put it more plainly and fairly, Mrs.

MRS. PEARCE[patiently] I think youd better let me speak to the girl properly in private. I dont know that I

can take charge of her or consent to the arrangement at all. Of course I know you dont mean her any harm;

but when you get what you call interested in people's accents, you never think or care what may happen to

HIGGINS. Thats all right. Thank you, Mrs. Pearce. Bundle her off to the bathroom.

LIZA[rising reluctantly and suspiciously] Youre a great bully, you are. I wont stay here if I dont like. I wont

let nobody wallop me. I never asked to go to Bucknam Palace, I didnt. I was never in trouble with the police,

MRS. PEARCE. Dont answer back, girl. You dont understand the gentleman. Come with me. [She leads the

LIZA[as she goes out] Well, what I say is right. I wont go near the king, not if I'm going to have my head cut

off. If I'd known what I was letting myself in for, I wouldnt have come here. I always been a good girl; and I

never offered to say a word to him; and I dont owe him nothing; and I dont care; and I wont be put upon; and

Mrs. Pearce shuts the door; and Eliza's plaints are no longer audible. Pickering comes from the hearth to the

PICKERING. Excuse the straight question, Higgins. Are you a man of good character where women are

HIGGINS[moodily] Have you ever met a man of good character where women are concerned?

HIGGINS[dogmatically, lifting himself on his hands to the level of the piano, and sitting on it with a

bounce] Well, I havnt. 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

HIGGINS[coming off the piano restlessly] Oh, 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. One wants to go north

and the other south; and the result is that both have to go east, though they both hate the east wind. [He sits

down on the bench at the keyboard]. So here I am, a confirmed old bachelor, and likely to remain so.

PICKERING[rising and standing over him gravely] Come, Higgins! You know what I mean. If I'm to be in

this business I shall feel responsible for that girl. I hope it's understood that no advantage is to be taken of her

HIGGINS. What! That thing! Sacred, I assure you. [Rising to explain] You see, she'll be a pupil; and teaching

would be impossible unless pupils were sacred. Ive taught scores of American millionairesses how to speak

English: the best looking women in the world. I'm seasoned. They might as well be blocks of wood. I might

Mrs. Pearce opens the door. She has Eliza's hat in her hand. Pickering retires to the easychair at the hearth

MRS. PEARCE[at the door] I just wish to trouble you with a word, if I may, Mr. Higgins.

HIGGINS. Yes, certainly. Come in. [She comes forward]. Dont burn that, Mrs. Pearce. I'll keep it as a

MRS. PEARCE. Handle it carefully, sir, please. I had to promise her not to burn it; but I had better put it in the

HIGGINS[putting it down hastily on the piano] Oh! thank you. Well, what have you to say to me?

MRS. PEARCE. Not at all, sir. Mr. Higgins: will you please be very particular what you say before the girl?

HIGGINS[sternly] Of course. I'm always particular about what I say. Why do you say this to me?

MRS. PEARCE[unmoved] No, sir: youre not at all particular when youve mislaid anything or when you get a

little impatient. Now it doesnt matter before me: I'm used to it. But you really must not swear before the girl.

HIGGINS[indignantly]I swear! [Most emphatically] I never swear. I detest the habit. What the devil do you

MRS. PEARCE[stolidly] Thats what I mean, sir. You swear a great deal too much. I dont mind your damning

MRS. PEARCE[not to be put off] but there is a certain word I must ask you not to use. The girl has just used it

herself because the bath was too hot. It begins with the same letter as bath. She knows no better: she learnt it

HIGGINS[loftily] I cannot charge myself with having ever uttered it, Mrs. Pearce. [She looks at him

steadfastly. He adds, hiding an uneasy conscience with a judicial air] Except perhaps in a moment of

MRS. PEARCE. Only this morning, sir, you applied it to your boots, to the butter, and to the brown bread.

MRS. PEARCE. Well, sir, whatever you choose to call it, I beg you not to let the girl hear you repeat it.

MRS. PEARCE. No, sir. We shall have to be very particular with this girl as to personal cleanliness.

MRS. PEARCE. I mean not to be slovenly about her dress or untidy in leaving things about.

HIGGINS[going to her solemnly] Just so. I intended to call your attention to that [He passes on to Pickering,

who is enjoying the conversation immensely]. It is these little things that matter, Pickering. Take care of the

pence and the pounds will take care of themselves is as true of personal habits as of money. [He comes to

MRS. PEARCE. Yes, sir. Then might I ask you not to come down to breakfast in your dressinggown, or at

any rate not to use it as a napkin to the extent you do, sir. And if you would be so good as not to eat

everything off the same plate, and to remember not to put the porridge saucepan out of your hand on the clean

tablecloth, it would be a better example to the girl. You know you nearly choked yourself with a fishbone in

HIGGINS[routed from the hearthrug and drifting back to the piano] I may do these things sometimes in

absence of mind; but surely I dont do them habitually. [Angrily] By the way: my dressinggown smells most

HIGGINS[shocked at finding himself thought capable of an unamiable sentiment] Not at all, not at all. Youre

quite right, Mrs. Pearce: I shall be particularly careful before the girl. Is that all?

MRS. PEARCE. No, sir. Might she use some of those Japanese dresses you brought from abroad? I really cant

HIGGINS. You know, Pickering, that woman has the most extraordinary ideas about me. Here I am, a shy,

diffident sort of man. Ive never been able to feel really grownup and tremendous, like other chaps. And yet

shes firmly persuaded that I'm an arbitrary overbearing bossing kind of person. I cant account for it.

MRS. PEARCE. If you please, sir, the trouble's beginning already. Theres a dustman downstairs, Alfred

PICKERING. Whether he is or not, I'm afraid we shall have some trouble with him.

HIGGINS[confidently] Oh no: I think not. If theres any trouble he shall have it with me, not I with him. And

Alfred Doolittle is an elderly but vigorous dustman, clad in the costume of his profession, including a hat

with a back brim covering his neck and shoulders. He has well marked and rather interesting features, and

seems equally free from fear and conscience. He has a remarkably expressive voice, the result of a habit of

giving vent to his feelings without reserve. His present pose is that of wounded honor and stern resolution.

DOOLITTLE[at the door, uncertain which of the two gentlemen is his man] Professor Higgins?

DOOLITTLE. Morning, Governor. [He sits down magisterially] I come about a very serious matter, Governor.

HIGGINS[to Pickering] Brought up in Hounslow. Mother Welsh, I should think. [Doolittle opens his mouth,

HIGGINS. Of course you do. Youre her father, arnt you? You dont suppose anyone else wants her, do you?

I'm glad to see you have some spark of family feeling left. Shes upstairs. Take her away at once.

DOOLITTLE[remonstrating] Now, now, look here, Governor. Is this reasonable? Is it fairity to take advantage

of a man like this? The girl belongs to me. You got her. Where do I come in? [He sits down again].

HIGGINS. Your daughter had the audacity to come to my house and ask me to teach her how to speak

properly so that she could get a place in a flowershop. This gentleman and my housekeeper have been here

all the time. [Bullying him] How dare you come here and attempt to blackmail me? You sent her here on

HIGGINS. The police shall take you up. This is a plant a plot to extort money by threats. I shall telephone for

DOOLITTLE. Have I asked you for a brass farthing? I leave it to the gentleman here: have I said a word about

HIGGINS[throwing the book aside and marching down on Doolittle with a poser] What else did you come for?

DOOLITTLE. So help me, Governor, I never did. I take my Bible oath I aint seen the girl these two months

DOOLITTLE["most musical, most melancholy"] I'll tell you, Governor, if youll only let me get a word in. I'm

HIGGINS. Pickering: this chap has a certain natural gift of rhetoric. Observe the rhythm of his native

woodnotes wild. "I'm willing to tell you: I'm wanting to tell you: I'm waiting to tell you." Sentimental

rhetoric! thats the Welsh strain in him. It also accounts for his mendacity and dishonesty.

PICKERING. Oh, p l e a s e, Higgins: I'm west country myself. [To Doolittle] How did you know the girl was

DOOLITTLE. It was like this, Governor. The girl took a boy in the taxi to give him a jaunt. Son of her

landlady, he is. He hung about on the chance of her giving him another ride home. Well, she sent him back

for her luggage when she heard you was willing for her to stop here. I met the boy at the corner of Long Acre

DOOLITTLE. He told me what was up. And I ask you, what was my feelings and my duty as a father? I says to

DOOLITTLE. Landlady wouldnt have trusted me with it, Governor. Shes that kind of woman: you know. I had

to give the boy a penny afore he trusted me with it, the little swine. I brought it to her just to oblige you like,

DOOLITTLE. Musical instrument, Governor. A few pictures, a trifle of jewelry, and a birdcage. She said she

didnt want no clothes. What was I to think from that, Governor? I ask you as a parent what was I to think?

DOOLITTLE[appreciatively: relieved at being so well understood] Just so, Governor. Thats right.

HIGGINS[determinedly] Youre going to take her away, double quick. [He crosses to the hearth and rings the

DOOLITTLE[rising] No, Governor. Dont say that. I'm not the man to stand in my girl's light. Heres a career

HIGGINS. Mrs. Pearce: this is Eliza's father. He has come to take her away. Give her to him. [He goes back to

MRS. PEARCE. He cant take her away, Mr. Higgins: how can he? You told me to burn her clothes.

DOOLITTLE. Thats right. I cant carry the girl through the streets like a blooming monkey, can I? I put it to you.

HIGGINS. You have put it to me that you want your daughter. Take your daughter. If she has no clothes go

DOOLITTLE[desperate] Wheres the clothes she come in? Did I burn them or did your missus here?

MRS. PEARCE. I am the housekeeper, if you please. I have sent for some clothes for your girl. When they

Doolittle, much troubled, accompanies her to the door; then hesitates; finally turns confidentially to Higgins.

DOOLITTLE[to Pickering] I thank you, Governor. [To Higgins, who takes refuge on the piano bench, a little

overwhelmed by the proximity of his visitor; for Doolittle has a professional flavor of dust about him]. Well,

the truth is, Ive taken a sort of fancy to you, Governor; and if you want the girl, I'm not so set on having her

back home again but what I might be open to an arrangement. Regarded in the light of a young woman, shes

a fine handsome girl. As a daughter shes not worth her keep; and so I tell you straight. All I ask is my rights

as a father; and youre the last man alive to expect me to let her go for nothing; for I can see youre one of the

straight sort, Governor. Well, whats a five pound note to you? And whats Eliza to me? [He returns to his

PICKERING. I think you ought to know, Doolittle, that Mr. Higgins's intentions are entirely honorable.

HIGGINS[revolted] Do you mean to say, you callous rascal, that you would sell your daughter for �50?

DOOLITTLE. Not in a general way I wouldnt; but to oblige a gentleman like you I'd do do a good deal, I do

DOOLITTLE[unabashed] Cant afford them, Governor. Neither could you if you was as poor as me. Not that I

mean any harm, you know. But if Liza is going to have a bit out of this, why not me too?

HIGGINS[troubled] I dont know what to do, Pickering. There can be no question that as a matter of morals it's

a positive crime to give this chap a farthing. And yet I feel a sort of rough justice in his claim.

DOOLITTLE. Dont say that, Governor. Dont look at it that way. What am I, Governors both? I ask you, what

am I? I'm one of the undeserving poor: thats what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that hes

up agen middle class morality all the time. If theres anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it's always the

same story: "Youre undeserving; so you cant have it." But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow's

that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I dont need

less than a deserving man: I need more. I dont eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of

amusement, cause I'm a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they

charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an

excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me.

I'm playing straight with you. I aint pretending to be deserving. I'm undeserving; and I mean to go on being

undeserving. I like it; and thats the truth. Will you take advantage of a man's nature to do him out of the price

of his own daughter what hes brought up and fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow until shes growed big

enough to be interesting to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable? I put it to you; and I leave it to

HIGGINS[rising, and going over to Pickering] Pickering: if we were to take this man in hand for three

months, he could choose between a seat in the Cabinet and a popular pulpit in Wales.

DOOLITTLE. Not me, Governor, thank you kindly. Ive heard all the preachers and all the prime ministers for

I'm a thinking man and game for politics or religion or social reform same as all the other amusements and I

tell you it's a dog's life anyway you look at it. Undeserving poverty is my line. Taking one station in society

with another, it's it's well, it's the only one that has any ginger in it, to my taste.

DOOLITTLE. Not me, Governor, so help me I wont. Dont you be afraid that I'll save it and spare it and live

idle on it. There wont be a penny of it left by Monday: I'll have to go to work same as if I'd never had it. It

wont pauperize me, you bet. Just one good spree for myself and the missus, giving pleasure to ourselves and

employment to others, and satisfaction to you to think it's not been throwed away. You couldnt spend it better.

HIGGINS[taking out his pocket book and coming between Doolittle and the piano] This is irresistible. Lets

DOOLITTLE. No, Governor. She wouldnt have the heart to spend ten; and perhaps I shouldnt neither. Ten

pounds is a lot of money: it makes a man feel prudent like; and then goodbye to happiness. You give me what

PICKERING. Why dont you marry that missus of yours? I rather draw the line at encouraging that sort of

DOOLITTLE. Tell her so, Governor: tell her so. I'm willing. It's me that suffers by it. Ive no hold on her. I got

to be agreeable to her. I got to give her presents. I got to buy her clothes something sinful. I'm a slave to that

woman, Governor, just because I'm not her lawful husband. And she knows it too. Catch her marrying me!

Take my advice, Governor: marry Eliza while shes young and dont know no better. If you dont youll be sorry

for it after. If you do, she'll be sorry for it after; but better you than her, because youre a man, and shes only a

HIGGINS. Pickering: if we listen to this man another minute, we shall have no convictions left. [To

DOOLITTLE. Thank you, Governor. Good morning. [He hurries to the door, anxious to get away with his

booty. When he opens it he is confronted with a dainty and exquisitely clean young Japanese lady in a simple

blue cotton kimono printed cunningly with small white jasmine blossoms. Mrs. Pearce is with her. He gets

MRS. PEARCE[at the door] Now, Mr. Higgins, please dont say anything to make the girl conceited about

HIGGINS[conscientiously] Oh! Quite right, Mrs. Pearce. [To Eliza] Yes: damned silly.

LIZA. I should look all right with my hat on. [She takes up her hat; puts it on; and walks across the room to

DOOLITTLE[with fatherly pride] Well, I never thought she'd clean up as good looking as that, Governor. Shes

LIZA. I tell you, it's easy to clean up here. Hot and cold water on tap, just as much as you like, there is.

Woolly towels, there is; and a towel horse so hot, it burns your fingers. Soft brushes to scrub yourself, and a

wooden bowl of soap smelling like primroses. Now I know why ladies is so clean. Washing's a treat for them.

LIZA. It didnt: not all of it; and I dont care who hears me say it. Mrs. Pearce knows.

LIZA. I had a good mind to break it. I didnt know which way to look. But I hung a towel over it, I did.

DOOLITTLE. Me! I never brought her up at all, except to give her a lick of a strap now and again. Dont put it

on me, Governor. She aint accustomed to it, you see: thats all. But she'll soon pick up your freeandeasy

HIGGINS. Eliza: if you say again that youre a good girl, your father shall take you home.

LIZA. Not him. You dont know my father. All he come here for was to touch you for some money to get

DOOLITTLE. Well, what else would I want money for? To put into the plate in church, I suppose. [She puts

out her tongue at him. He is so incensed by this that Pickering presently finds it necessary to step between

them]. Dont you give me none of your lip; and dont let me hear you giving this gentleman any of it neither, or

HIGGINS. Have you any further advice to give her before you go, Doolittle? Your blessing, for instance.

DOOLITTLE. No, Governor: I aint such a mug as to put up my children to all I know myself. Hard enough to

hold them in without that. If you want Eliza's mind improved, Governor, you do it yourself with a strap. So

HIGGINS[impressively] Stop. Youll come regularly to see your daughter. It's your duty, you know. My

DOOLITTLE[evasively] Certainly. I'll come, Governor. Not just this week, because I have a job at a distance.

But later on you may depend on me. Afternoon, gentlemen. Afternoon, maam. [He takes off his hat to Mrs.

Pearce, who disdains the salutation and goes out. He winks at Higgins, thinking him probably a

LIZA. Dont you believe the old liar. He'd as soon you set a bulldog on him as a clergyman. You wont see

LIZA. Not me. I dont want never to see him again, I dont. Hes a disgrace to me, he is, collecting dust, instead

LIZA. Talking money out of other people's pockets into his own. His proper trade's a navvy; and he works at

it sometimes too for exercise and earns good money at it. Aint you going to call me Miss Doolittle any

LIZA. Oh, I dont mind; only it sounded so genteel. I should just like to take a taxi to the corner of Tottenham

Court Road and get out there and tell it to wait for me, just to put the girls in their place a bit. I wouldnt speak

HIGGINS. Besides, you shouldnt cut your old friends now that you have risen in the world. Thats what we call

LIZA. You dont call the like of them my friends now, I should hope. Theyve took it out of me often enough

with their ridicule when they had the chance; and now I mean to get a bit of my own back. But if I'm to have

fashionable clothes, I'll wait. I should like to have some. Mrs. Pearce says youre going to give me some to

wear in bed at night different to what I wear in the daytime; but it do seem a waste of money when you could

get something to shew. Besides, I never could fancy changing into cold things on a winter night.

MRS. PEARCE[coming back] Now, Eliza. The new things have come for you to try on.

MRS. PEARCE[following her] Oh, dont rush about like that, girl [She shuts the door behind her].

It is Mrs. Higgins's athome day. Nobody has yet arrived. Her drawingroom, in a flat on Chelsea

embankment, has three windows looking on the river; and the ceiling is not so lofty as it would be in an older

house of the same pretension. The windows are open, giving access to a balcony with flowers in pots. If you

stand with your face to the windows, you have the fireplace on your left and the door in the righthand wall

Mrs. Higgins was brought up on Morris and Burne Jones; and her room, which is very unlike her son's room

in Wimpole Street, is not crowded with furniture and little tables and nicknacks. In the middle of the room

there is a big ottoman; and this, with the carpet, the Morris wallpapers, and the Morris chintz window

curtains and brocade covers of the ottoman and its cushions, supply all the ornament, and are much too

handsome to be hidden by odds and ends of useless things. A few good oilpaintings from the exhibitions in

the Grosvenor Gallery thirty years ago (the Burne Jones, not the Whistler side of them) are on the walls. The

only landscape is a Cecil Lawson on the scale of a Rubens. There is a portrait of Mrs. Higgins as she was

when she defied fashion in her youth in one of the beautiful Rossettian costumes which, when caricatured by

people who did not understand, led to the absurdities of popular estheticism in the eighteenseventies.

In the corner diagonally opposite the door Mrs. Higgins, now over sixty and long past taking the trouble to

dress out of the fashion, sits writing at an elegantly simple writingtable with a bell button within reach of

her hand. There is a Chippendale chair further back in the room between her and the window nearest her

side. At the other side of the room, further forward, is an Elizabethan chair roughly carved in the taste of

Inigo Jones. On the same side a piano in a decorated case. The corner between the fireplace and the window

MRS. HIGGINS[dismayed] Henry [scolding him]! What are you doing here today? It is my athome day:

you promised not to come. [As he bends to kiss her, she takes his hat off, and presents it to him].

MRS. HIGGINS. But you mustnt. I'm serious, Henry. You offend all my friends: they stop coming whenever

HIGGINS. Nonsense! I know I have no small talk; but people dont mind. [He sits on the settee].

MRS. HIGGINS. Oh! dont they? Small talk indeed! What about your large talk? Really, dear, you mustnt stay.

MRS. HIGGINS. No use, dear. I'm sorry; but I cant get round your vowels; and though I like to get pretty

postcards in your patent shorthand, I always have to read the copies in ordinary writing you so thoughtfully

MRS. HIGGINS. Well, you never fall in love with anyone under fortyfive. When will you discover that there

HIGGINS. Oh, I cant be bothered with young women. My idea of a loveable woman is something as like you

as possible. I shall never get into the way of seriously liking young women: some habits lie too deep to be

changed. [Rising abruptly and walking about, jingling his money and his keys in his trouser pockets] Besides,

MRS. HIGGINS. No. Stop fidgeting and take your hands out of your pockets. [With a gesture of despair, he

HIGGINS. Well, it's like this. Shes a common flower girl. I picked her off the kerbstone.

HIGGINS[rising and coming to her to coax her] Oh, thatll be all right. Ive taught her to speak properly; and

she has strict orders as to her behavior. Shes to keep to two subjects: the weather and everybody's

health Fine day and How do you do, you know and not to let herself go on things in general. That will be

MRS. HIGGINS. Safe! To talk about our health! about our insides! perhaps about our outsides! How could you

HIGGINS[impatiently] Well, she must talk about something. [He controls himself and sits down again]. Oh,

she'll be all right: dont you fuss. Pickering is in it with me. Ive a sort of bet on that I'll pass her off as a

duchess in six months. I started on her some months ago; and shes getting on like a house on fire. I shall win

my bet. She has a quick ear; and shes been easier to teach than my middleclass pupils because shes had to

HIGGINS. You see, Ive got her pronunciation all right; but you have to consider not only how a girl

HIGGINS. Oh Lord! [He rises; snatches his hat from the table; and makes for the door; but before he reaches

Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill are the mother and daughter who sheltered from the rain in Covent Garden. The

mother is well bred, quiet, and has the habitual anxiety of straitened means. The daughter has acquired a gay

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. Your celebrated son! I have so longed to meet you, Professor Higgins.

HIGGINS[glumly, making no movement in her direction] Delighted. [He backs against the piano and bows

HIGGINS[staring at her] Ive seen you before somewhere. I havnt the ghost of a notion where; but Ive heard

MRS. HIGGINS. I'm sorry to say that my celebrated son has no manners. You mustnt mind him.

MISS EYNSFORD HILL[a little bewildered] Not at all. [She sits on the ottoman between her daughter and

He goes to the central window, through which, with his back to the company, he contemplates the river and

the flowers in Battersea Park on the opposite bank as if they were a frozen desert.

MRS. HIGGINS. So glad youve come. Do you know Mrs. Eynsford Hill Miss Eynsford Hill? [Exchange of

bows. The Colonel brings the Chippendale chair a little forward between Mrs. Hill and Mrs. Higgins, and

MRS. HIGGINS[rising and making her sit down again] No, no. You couldnt have come more fortunately: we

HIGGINS[turning hopefully] Yes, by George! We want two or three people. Youll do as well as anybody else.

HIGGINS[looking at him much as if he were a pickpocket] I'll take my oath Ive met you before somewhere.

He shakes Freddy's hand, and almost slings him on the ottoman with his face to the windows; then comes

HIGGINS. Well, here we are, anyhow! [He sits down on the ottoman next Mrs. Eynsford Hill, on her left].

MRS. HIGGINS. Henry: you are the life and soul of the Royal Society's soir�es; but really youre rather trying

HIGGINS. Am I? Very sorry. [Beaming suddenly] I suppose I am, you know. [Uproariously] Ha, ha!

MISS EYNSFORD HILL[who considers Higgins quite eligible matrimonially] I sympathize. I havnt any small

HIGGINS. What they think they ought to think is bad enough, Lord knows; but what they really think would

break up the whole show. Do you suppose it would be really agreeable if I were to come out now with what

HIGGINS. Cynical! Who the dickens said it was cynical? I mean it wouldnt be decent.

HIGGINS. You see, we're all savages, more or less. We're supposed to be civilized and cultured to know all

about poetry and philosophy and art and science, and so on; but how many of us know even the meanings of

these names? [To Miss Hill] What do you know of poetry? [To Mrs. Hill] What do you know of science?

[Indicating Freddy] What does he know of art or science or anything else? What the devil do you imagine I

HIGGINS[rising hastily and running to Mrs. Higgins] Here she is, mother. [He stands on tiptoe and makes

signs over his mother's head to Eliza to indicate to her which lady is her hostess].

Eliza, who is exquisitely dressed, produces an impression of such remarkable distinction and beauty as she

enters that they all rise, quite fluttered. Guided by Higgins's signals, she comes to Mrs. Higgins with studied

LIZA[speaking with pedantic correctness of pronunciation and great beauty of tone] How do you do, Mrs.

Higgins? [She gasps slightly in making sure of the H in Higgins, but is quite successful]. Mr. Higgins told me

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. I feel sure we have met before, Miss Doolittle. I remember your eyes.

LIZA. How do you do? [She sits down on the ottoman gracefully in the place just left vacant by Higgins].

CLARA[impulsively] How do you do? [She sits down on the ottoman beside Eliza, devouring her with her

HIGGINS[suddenly] By George, yes: it all comes back to me! [They stare at him]. Covent Garden!

MRS. HIGGINS. Henry, please! [He is about to sit on the edge of the table]. Dont sit on my writingtable:

He goes to the divan, stumbling into the fender and over the fireirons on his way; extricating himself with

muttered imprecations; and finishing his disastrous journey by throwing himself so impatiently on the divan

that he almost breaks it. Mrs. Higgins looks at him, but controls herself and says nothing.

LIZA. The shallow depression in the west of these islands is likely to move slowly in an easterly direction.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. I'm sure I hope it wont turn cold. Theres so much influenza about. It runs right

LIZA. Yeeees, Lord love you! Why should she die of influenza? She come through diphtheria right

enough the year before. I saw her with my own eyes. Fairly blue with it, she was. They all thought she was

dead; but my father he kept ladling gin down her throat til she came to so sudden that she bit the bowl off the

LIZA[piling up the indictment] What call would a woman with that strength in her have to die of influenza?

What become of her new straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it; and what I say is,

HIGGINS[hastily] Oh, thats the new small talk. To do a person in means to kill them.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL[to Eliza, horrified] You surely dont believe that your aunt was killed?

LIZA. Do I not! Them she lived with would have killed her for a hatpin, let alone a hat.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. But it cant have been right for your father to pour spirits down her throat like that. It

LIZA. Not her. Gin was mother's milk to her. Besides, he'd poured so much down his own throat that he knew

LIZA. Not a bit. It never did him no harm what I could see. But then he did not keep it up regular.

[Cheerfully] On the burst, as you might say, from time to time. And always more agreeable when he had a

drop in. When he was out of work, my mother used to give him fourpence and tell him to go out and not

come back until he'd drunk himself cheerful and lovinglike. Theres lots of women has to make their

husbands drunk to make them fit to live with. [Now quite at her ease] You see, it's like this. If a man has a bit

of a conscience, it always takes him when he's sober; and then it makes him lowspirited. A drop of booze

just takes that off and makes him happy. [To Freddy, who is in convulsions of suppressed laughter] Here!

LIZA. If I was doing it proper, what was you laughing at? [To Higgins] Have I said anything I oughtnt?

LIZA[looking round at him; taking the hint; and rising] Well: I must go. [They all rise. Freddy goes to the

door]. So pleased to have met you. Goodbye. [She shakes hands with Mrs. Higgins].

FREDDY[opening the door for her] Are you walking across the Park, Miss Doolittle? If so

LIZA. Walk! Not bloody likely. [Sensation]. I am going in a taxi. [She goes out].

Pickering gasps and sits down. Freddy goes out on the balcony to catch another glimpse of Eliza.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL[suffering from shock] Well, I really cant get used to the new ways.

CLARA[throwing herself discontentedly into the Elizabethan chair]. Oh, it's all right, mamma, quite right.

People will think we never go anywhere or see anybody if you are so oldfashioned.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. I daresay I am very oldfashioned; but I do hope you wont begin using that

expression, Clara. I have got accustomed to hear you talking about men as rotters, and calling everything

filthy and beastly; though I do think it horrible and unladylike. But this last is really too much. Dont you

PICKERING. Dont ask me. Ive been away in India for several years; and manners have changed so much that I

sometimes dont know whether I'm at a respectable dinnertable or in a ship's forecastle.

CLARA. It's all a matter of habit. Theres no right or wrong in it. Nobody means anything by it. And it's so

quaint, and gives such a smart emphasis to things that are not in themselves very witty. I find the new small

CLARA[rising] Oh yes: we have three athomes to go to still. Goodbye, Mrs. Higgins. Goodbye, Colonel

HIGGINS[coming grimly at her from the divan, and accompanying her to the door] Goodbye. Be sure you

try on that small talk at the three athomes. Dont be nervous about it. Pitch it in strong.

CLARA[all smiles] I will. Goodbye. Such nonsense, all this early Victorian prudery!

CLARA. Ha! ha! [She goes out radiant, conscious of being thoroughly up to date, and is heard descending the

FREDDY[to the heavens at large] Well, I ask you [He gives it up, and comes to Mrs. Higgins]. Goodbye.

MRS. HIGGINS. [shaking hands] Goodbye. Would you like to meet Miss Doolittle again?

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL[to Pickering] It's no use. I shall never be able to bring myself to use that word.

PICKERING. Dont. It's not compulsory, you know. Youll get on quite well without it.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. Only, Clara is so down on me if I am not positively reeking with the latest slang.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL[to Mrs. Higgins] You mustnt mind Clara. [Pickering, catching from her lowered tone

that this is not meant for him to hear, discreetly joins Higgins at the window]. We're so poor! and she gets so

few parties, poor child! She doesnt quite know. [Mrs. Higgins, seeing that her eyes are moist, takes her hand

sympathetically and goes with her to the door]. But the boy is nice. Dont you think so?

HIGGINS[eagerly] Well? Is Eliza presentable [he swoops on his mother and drags her to the ottoman, where

MRS. HIGGINS. You silly boy, of course shes not presentable. Shes a triumph of your art and of her

dressmaker's; but if you suppose for a moment that she doesnt give herself away in every sentence she utters,

PICKERING. But dont you think something might be done? I mean something to eliminate the sanguinary

MRS. HIGGINS. No, dearest: it would be quite proper say on a canal barge; but it would not be proper for her

PICKERING[interrupting him] Come, Higgins: you must learn to know yourself. I havnt heard such language

HIGGINS[sulkily] Oh, well, if you say so, I suppose I dont always talk like a bishop.

MRS. HIGGINS[quieting Henry with a touch] Colonel Pickering: will you tell me what is the exact state of

PICKERING[cheerfully: as if this completely changed the subject] Well, I have come to live there with Henry.

MRS. HIGGINS. Quite so. I know all about that: it's an excellent arrangement. But where does this girl live?

HIGGINS. Well, dash me if I do! Ive had to work at the girl every day for months to get her to her present

pitch. Besides, shes useful. She knows where my things are, and remembers my appointments and so forth.

HIGGINS. Mrs. Pearce? Oh, shes jolly glad to get so much taken off her hands; for before Eliza came, she

used to have to find things and remind me of my appointments. But shes got some silly bee in her bonnet

PICKERING. Yes: thats the formula. "You dont think, sir." Thats the end of every conversation about Eliza.

HIGGINS. As if I ever stop thinking about the girl and her confounded vowels and consonants. I'm worn out,

thinking about her, and watching her lips and her teeth and her tongue, not to mention her soul, which is the

MRS. HIGGINS. You certainly are a pretty pair of babies, playing with your live doll.

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.

PICKERING[drawing his chair closer to Mrs. Higgins and bending over to her eagerly] Yes: it's enormously

interesting. I assure you, Mrs. Higgins, we take Eliza very seriously. Every week every day almost there is

some new change. [Closer again] We keep records of every stage dozens of gramophone disks and

HIGGINS[assailing her at the other ear] Yes, by George: it's the most absorbing experiment I ever tackled.

MRS. HIGGINS[putting her fingers in her ears, as they are by this time shouting one another down with an

HIGGINS. Sorry. When Pickering starts shouting nobody can get a word in edgeways.

MRS. HIGGINS. Be quiet, Henry. Colonel Pickering: dont you realize that when Eliza walked into Wimpole

MRS. HIGGINS. It would have been more to the point if her mother had. But as her mother didnt something

MRS. HIGGINS. No, you two infinitely stupid male creatures: the problem of what is to be done with her

HIGGINS. I dont see anything in that. She can go her own way, with all the advantages I have given her.

MRS. HIGGINS. The advantages of that poor woman who was here just now! The manners and habits that

disqualify a fine lady from earning her own living without giving her a fine lady's income! Is that what you

PICKERING[indulgently, being rather bored] Oh, that will be all right, Mrs. Higgins. [He rises to go].

PICKERING. Shes happy enough. Dont you worry about her. Goodbye. [He shakes hands as if he were

HIGGINS. Anyhow, theres no good bothering now. The things done. Goodbye, mother. [He kisses her, and

PICKERING[turning for a final consolation] There are plenty of openings. We'll do whats right. Goodbye.

HIGGINS[to Pickering as they go out together] Let's take her to the Shakespear exhibition at Earls Court.

MRS. HIGGINS[rises with an impatient bounce, and returns to her work at the writingtable. She sweeps a

litter of disarranged papers out of her way; snatches a sheet of paper from her stationery case; and tries

resolutely to write. At the third line she gives it up; flings down her pen; grips the table angrily and

The Wimpole Street laboratory, Midnight. Nobody in the room. The clock on the mantelpiece strikes twelve.

HIGGINS[calling down to Pickering] I say, Pick: lock up, will you. I shant be going out again.

Eliza opens the door and is seen on the lighted landing in opera cloak, brilliant evening dress, and diamonds,

with fan, flowers, and all accessories. She comes to the hearth, and switches on the electric lights there. She

is tired: her pallor contrasts strongly with her dark eyes and hair; and her expression is almost tragic. She

takes off her cloak; puts her fan and flowers on the piano; and sits down on the bench, brooding and silent.

Higgins, in evening dress, with overcoat and hat, comes in, carrying a smoking jacket which he has picked up

downstairs. He takes off the hat and overcoat; throws them carelessly on the newspaper stand; disposes of

his coat in the same way; puts on the smoking jacket; and throws himself wearily into the easychair at the

hearth. Pickering, similarly attired, comes in. He also takes off his hat and overcoat, and is about to throw

PICKERING. I say: Mrs. Pearce will row if we leave these things lying about in the drawingroom.

HIGGINS. Oh, chuck them over the bannisters into the hall. She'll find them there in the morning and put them

HIGGINS. I didnt look. [Pickering takes the overcoats and hats and goes down stairs. Higgins begins half

singing half yawning an air from La Fanciulla del Golden West. Suddenly he stops and exclaims] I wonder

PICKERING. Only circulars, and this coroneted billetdoux for you. [He throws the circulars into the fender,

HIGGINS[glancing at the billetdoux] Moneylender. [He throws the letter after the circulars].

Eliza returns with a pair of large downatheel slippers. She places them on the carpet before Higgins, and

HIGGINS[yawning again] Oh Lord! What an evening! What a crew! What a silly tomfoollery! [He raises his

shoe to unlace it, and catches sight of the slippers. He stops unlacing and looks at them as if they had

PICKERING[stretching himself] Well, I feel a bit tired. It's been a long day. The garden party, a dinner party,

and the opera! Rather too much of a good thing. But youve won your bet, Higgins. Eliza did the trick, and

Eliza flinches violently; but they take no notice of her; and she recovers herself and sits stonily as before.

PICKERING. Were you nervous at the garden party? I was. Eliza didnt seem a bit nervous.

HIGGINS. Oh, she wasnt nervous. I knew she'd be all right. No: it's the strain of putting the job through all

these months that has told on me. It was interesting enough at first, while we were at the phonetics; but after

that I got deadly sick of it. If I hadnt backed myself to do it I should have chucked the whole thing up two

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. The dinner was worse: sitting gorging there for over an hour, with

nobody but a damned fool of a fashionable woman to talk to! I tell you, Pickering, never again for me. No

PICKERING. Youve never been broken in properly to the social routine. [Strolling over to the piano] I rather

enjoy dipping into it occasionally myself: it makes me feel young again. Anyhow, it was a great success: an

immense success. I was quite frightened once or twice because Eliza was doing it so well. You see, lots of the

real people cant do it at all: theyre such fools that they think style comes by nature to people in their position;

and so they never learn. Theres always something professional about doing a thing superlatively well.

HIGGINS. Yes: thats what drives me mad: the silly people dont know their own silly business.

[Rising] However, it's over and done with; and now I can go to bed at last without dreading tomorrow.

PICKERING. I think I shall turn in too. Still, it's been a great occasion: a triumph for you. Goodnight. [He

HIGGINS[following him] Goodnight. [Over his shoulder, at the door] Put out the lights, Eliza; and tell Mrs.

Eliza tries to control herself and feel indifferent as she rises and walks across to the hearth to switch off the

lights. By the time she gets there she is on the point of screaming. She sits down in Higgins's chair and holds

on hard to the arms. Finally she gives way and flings herself furiously on the floor raging.

HIGGINS[in despairing wrath outside] What the devil have I done with my slippers? [He appears at the

LIZA[snatching up the slippers, and hurling them at him one after the other with all her force] There are your

slippers. And there. Take your slippers; and may you never have a day's luck with them!

HIGGINS[astounded] What on earth ! [He comes to her]. Whats the matter? Get up. [He pulls her up].

LIZA[breathless] Nothing wrong with y o u. Ive won your bet for you, havnt I? Thats enough for you. I dont

HIGGINS. Y o u won my bet! You! Presumptuous insect! I won it. What did you throw those slippers at me

LIZA. Because I wanted to smash your face. I'd like to kill you, you selfish brute. Why didnt you leave me

where you picked me out of in the gutter? You thank God it's all over, and that now you can throw me back

LIZA[gives a suffocated scream of fury, and instinctively darts her nails at his face]!!

HIGGINS[catching her wrists] Ah! would you? Claws in, you cat. How dare you shew your temper to me? Sit

LIZA[crushed by superior strength and weight] Whats to become of me? Whats to become of me?

HIGGINS. How the devil do I know whats to become of you? What does it matter what becomes of you?

LIZA. You dont care. I know you dont care. You wouldnt care if I was dead. I'm nothing to you not so much

LIZA[with bitter submission] Those slippers. I didnt think it made any difference now.

HIGGINS[in his loftiest manner] Why have you begun going on like this? May I ask whether you complain of

HIGGINS. Has anybody behaved badly to you? Colonel Pickering? Mrs. Pearce? Any of the servants?

HIGGINS. I am glad to hear it. [He moderates his tone]. Perhaps youre tired after the strain of the day. Will

HIGGINS[goodhumored again] This has been coming on you for some days. I suppose it was natural for

you to be anxious about the garden party. But thats all over now. [He pats her kindly on the shoulder. She

LIZA. No. Nothing more for y o u to worry about. [She suddenly rises and gets away from him by going to the

HIGGINS[staring after her in sincere surprise] Why? in heaven's name, why? [Reasonably, going to

HIGGINS. It's only imagination. Low spirits and nothing else. Nobody's hurting you. Nothing's wrong. You go

to bed like a good girl and sleep it off. Have a little cry and say your prayers: that will make you comfortable.

HIGGINS[impatiently] Well, dont you thank God it's all over? Now you are free and can do what you like.

LIZA[pulling herself together in desperation] What am I fit for? What have you left me fit for? Where am I to

HIGGINS[enlightened, but not at all impressed] Oh, thats whats worrying you, is it? [He thrusts his hands

into his pockets, and walks about in his usual manner, rattling the contents of his pockets, as if

condescending to a trivial subject out of pure kindness]. I shouldnt bother about it if I were you. I should

imagine you wont have much difficulty in settling yourself somewhere or other, though I hadnt quite realized

that you were going away. [She looks quickly at him: he does not look at her, but examines the dessert stand

on the piano and decides that he will eat an apple]. You might marry, you know. [He bites a large piece out

of the apple, and munches it noisily]. You see, Eliza, all men are not confirmed old bachelors like me and the

Colonel. Most men are the marrying sort (poor devils!); and youre not badlooking; it's quite a pleasure to

look at you sometimes not now, of course, because youre crying and looking as ugly as the very devil; but

when youre all right and quite yourself, youre what I should call attractive. That is, to the people in the

marrying line, you understand. You go to bed and have a good nice rest; and then get up and look at yourself

The look is quite lost on him: he eats his apple with a dreamy expression of happiness, as it is quite a good

HIGGINS[a genial afterthought occurring to him] I daresay my mother could find some chap or other who

LIZA. I sold flowers. I didnt sell myself. Now youve made a lady of me I'm not fit to sell anything else. I wish

HIGGINS. [slinging the core of the apple decisively into the grate] Tosh, Eliza. Dont you insult human

relations by dragging all this cant about buying and selling into it. You neednt marry the fellow if you dont

HIGGINS. Oh, lots of things. What about your old idea of a florist's shop? Pickering could set you up in one:

hes lots of money. [Chuckling] He'll have to pay for all those togs you have been wearing today; and that,

with the hire of the jewellery, will make a big hole in two hundred pounds. Why, six months ago you would

have thought it the millennium to have a flower shop of your own. Come! youll be all right. I must clear off

to bed: I'm devilish sleepy. By the way, I came down for something: I forget what it was.

HIGGINS. Oh yes, of course. You shied them at me. [He picks them up, and is going out when she rises and

HIGGINS[coming back into the room as if her question were the very climax of unreason] What the devil use

LIZA. I dont want to hear anything more about that. All I want to know is whether anything belongs to me.

HIGGINS. But what does it matter? Why need you start bothering about that in the middle of the night?

LIZA. I want to know what I may take away with me. I dont want to be accused of stealing.

HIGGINS[now deeply wounded] Stealing! You shouldnt have said that, Eliza. That shews a want of feeling.

LIZA. I'm sorry. I'm only a common ignorant girl; and in my station I have to be careful. There cant be any

feelings between the like of you and the like of me. Please will you tell me what belongs to me and what

HIGGINS[very sulky] You may take the whole damned houseful if you like. Except the jewels. Theyre hired.

Will that satisfy you? [He turns on his heel and is about to go in extreme dudgeon].

LIZA[drinking in his emotion like nectar, and nagging him to provoke a further supply] Stop, please. [She

takes off her jewels]. Will you take these to your room and keep them safe? I dont want to run the risk of their

HIGGINS[furious] Hand them over. [She puts them into his hands]. If these belonged to me instead of to the

jeweler, I'd ram them down your ungrateful throat. [He perfunctorily thrusts them into his pockets,

LIZA[taking a ring off] This ring isnt the jeweler's: it's the one you bought me in Brighton. I dont want it

now. [Higgins dashes the ring violently into the fireplace, and turns on her so threateningly that she

crouches over the piano with her hands over her face, and exclaims] Dont you hit me.

HIGGINS. Hit you! You infamous creature, how dare you accuse me of such a thing? It is you who have hit

LIZA[thrilling with hidden joy] I'm glad. Ive got a little of my own back, anyhow.

HIGGINS[with dignity, in his finest professional style] You have caused me to lose my temper: a thing that

has hardly ever happend to me before. I prefer to say nothing more tonight. I am going to bed.

LIZA[pertly] Youd better leave a note for Mrs. Pearce about the coffee; for she wont be told by me.

HIGGINS[formally] Damn Mrs. Pearce; and damn the coffee; and damn you; and damn my own folly in

having lavished hardearned knowledge and the treasure of my regard and intimacy on a heartless

guttersnipe. [He goes out with impressive decorum, and spoils it by slamming the door savagely].

Eliza smiles for the first time; expresses her feelings by a wild pantomime in which an imitation of Higgins's

exit is confused with her own triumph; and finally goes down on her knees on the hearthrug to look for the

Mrs. Higgins's drawingroom. She is at her writingtable as before. The parlormaid comes in.

THE PARLORMAID[at the door] Mr. Henry, mam, is downstairs with Colonel Pickering.

THE PARLORMAID. Theyre using the telephone, mam. Telephoning to the police, I think.

THE PARLORMAID[coming further in and lowering her voice] Mr. Henry's in a state, mam. I thought I'd

MRS. HIGGINS. If you had told me that Mr. Henry was not in a state it would have been more surprising. Tell

them to come up when theyve finished with the police. I suppose hes lost something.

MRS. HIGGINS. Go upstairs and tell Miss Doolittle that Mr. Henry and the Colonel are here. Ask her not to

MRS. HIGGINS. Yes, dear. Goodmorning. [He checks his impatience and kisses her, whilst the parlormaid

HIGGINS. Frightened her! nonsense! She was left last night, as usual, to turn out the lights and all that; and

instead of going to bed she changed her clothes and went right off: her bed wasnt slept in. She came in a cab

for her things before seven this morning; and that fool Mrs. Pearce let her have them without telling me a

MRS. HIGGINS. Do without, I'm afraid, Henry. The girl has a perfect right to leave if she chooses.

HIGGINS[wandering distractedly across the room] But I cant find anything. I dont know what appointments

Ive got. I'm [Pickering comes in. Mrs. Higgins puts down her pen and turns away from the writingtable].

PICKERING[shaking hands] Goodmorning, Mrs. Higgins. Has Henry told you? [He sits down on the

MRS. HIGGINS[rising in indignant amazement] You dont mean to say you have set the police after Eliza?

HIGGINS. Of course. What are the police for? What else could we do? [He sits in the Elizabethan chair].

PICKERING. The inspector made a lot of difficulties. I really think he suspected us of some improper purpose.

MRS. HIGGINS. Well, of course he did. What right have you to go to the police and give the girl's name as if

she were a thief, or a lost umbrella, or something? Really! [She sits down again, deeply vexed].

PICKERING. We cant let her go like this, you know, Mrs. Higgins. What were we to do?

THE PARLORMAID. Mr. Henry: a gentleman wants to see you very particular. Hes been sent on from

HIGGINS[springing up excitedly] By George, Pick, it's some relative of hers that shes gone to. Somebody we

HIGGINS[eagerly, going to his mother] Genteel relatives! now we shall hear something. [He sits down in the

Doolittle enters. He is brilliantly dressed in a new fashionable frockcoat, with white waistcoat and grey

trousers. A flower in his buttonhole, a dazzling silk hat, and patent leather shoes complete the effect. He is

too concerned with the business he has come on to notice Mrs. Higgins. He walks straight to Higgins, and

DOOLITTLE[taken aback as he becomes conscious that he has forgotten his hostess] Asking your pardon,

maam. [He approaches her and shakes her proffered hand]. Thank you. [He sits down on the ottoman, on

Pickering's right]. I am that full of what has happened to me that I cant think of anything else.

DOOLITTLE. I shouldnt mind if it had only happened to me: anything might happen to anybody and nobody to

blame but Providence, as you might say. But this is something that you done to me: yes, you, Henry Higgins.

DOOLITTLE. You have all the luck, you have. I aint found her; but she'll find me quick enough now after what

DOOLITTLE. Done to me! Ruined me. Destroyed my happiness. Tied me up and delivered me into the hands

HIGGINS[rising intolerantly and standing over Doolittle] Youre raving. Youre drunk. Youre mad. I gave you

five pounds. After that I had two conversations with you, at halfacrown an hour. Ive never seen you since.

DOOLITTLE. Oh! Drunk! am I? Mad! am I? Tell me this. Did you or did you not write a letter to an old

blighter in America that was giving five millions to found Moral Reform Societies all over the world, and

DOOLITTLE. Yes: hes dead; and I'm done for. Now did you or did you not write a letter to him to say that the

most original moralist at present in England, to the best of your knowledge, was Alfred Doolittle, a common

HIGGINS. Oh, after your last visit I remember making some silly joke of the kind.

DOOLITTLE. Ah! you may well call it a silly joke. It put the lid on me right enough. Just give him the chance

he wanted to shew that Americans is not like us: that they recognize and respect merit in every class of life,

however humble. Them words is in his blooming will, in which, Henry Higgins, thanks to your silly joking,

he leaves me a share in his Predigested Cheese Trust worth three thousand a year on condition that I lecture

for his Wannafeller Moral Reform World League as often as they ask me up to six times a year.

DOOLITTLE. It aint the lecturing I mind. I'll lecture them blue in the face, I will, and not turn a hair. It's

making a gentleman of me that I object to. Who asked him to make a gentleman of me? I was happy. I was

free. I touched pretty nigh everybody for money when I wanted it, same as I touched you, Henry Higgins.

Now I am worrited; tied neck and heels; and everybody touches me for money. It's a fine thing for you, says

my solicitor. Is it? says I. You mean it's a good thing for you, I says. When I was a poor man and had a

solicitor once when they found a pram in the dust cart, he got me off, and got shut of me and got me shut of

him as quick as he could. Same with the doctors: used to shove me out of the hospital before I could hardly

stand on my legs, and nothing to pay. Now they finds out that I'm not a healthy man and cant live unless they

looks after me twice a day. In the house I'm not let do a hand's turn for myself: somebody else must do it and

touch me for it. A year ago I hadnt a relative in the world except two or three that wouldnt speak to me. Now

Ive fifty, and not a decent week's wages among the lot of them. I have to live for others and not for myself:

thats middle class morality. You talk of losing Eliza. Dont you be anxious: I bet shes on my doorstep by this:

she that could support herself easy by selling flowers if I wasnt respectable. And the next one to touch me

will be you, Henry Higgins. I'll have to learn to speak middle class language from you, instead of speaking

proper English. Thats where youll come in; and I daresay thats what you done it for.

MRS. HIGGINS. But, my dear Mr. Doolittle, you need not suffer all this if you are really in earnest. Nobody

can force you to accept this bequest. You can repudiate it. Isnt that so, Colonel Pickering?

DOOLITTLE: [softening his manner in deference to her sex] Thats the tragedy of it, maam. It's easy to say

chuck it; but I havent the nerve. Which of us has? We're all intimidated. Intimidated, maam: thats what we

are. What is there for me if I chuck it but the workhouse in my old age? I have to dye my hair already to keep

my job as a dustman. If I was one of the deserving poor, and had put by a bit, I could chuck it; but then why

should I, acause the deserving poor might as well be millionaires for all the happiness they ever has. They

dont know what happiness is. But I, as one of the undeserving poor, have nothing between me and the

pauper's uniform but this here blasted three thousand a year that shoves me into the middle class. (Excuse the

expression, maam: youd use it yourself if you had my provocation). Theyve got you every way you turn: it's a

choice between the Skilly of the workhouse and the Char Bydis of the middle class; and I havnt the nerve for

the workhouse. Intimidated: thats what I am. Broke. Bought up. Happier men than me will call for my dust,

and touch me for their tip; and I'll look on helpless, and envy them. And thats what your son has brought me

MRS. HIGGINS. Well, I'm very glad youre not going to do anything foolish, Mr. Doolittle. For this solves the

DOOLITTLE[with melancholy resignation] Yes, maam: I'm expected to provide for everyone now, out of

HIGGINS[jumping up] Nonsense! he cant provide for her. He shant provide for her. She doesnt belong to him.

I paid him five pounds for her. Doolittle: either youre an honest man or a rogue.

DOOLITTLE[tolerantly] A little of both, Henry, like the rest of us: a little of both.

HIGGINS. Well, you took that money for the girl; and you have no right to take her as well.

MRS. HIGGINS. Henry: dont be absurd. If you really want to know where Eliza is, she is upstairs.

HIGGINS[amazed] Upstairs!!! Then I shall jolly soon fetch her downstairs. [He makes resolutely for the door].

HIGGINS. Oh very well, very well, very well. [He throws himself ungraciously on the ottoman, with his face

MRS. HIGGINS. Eliza came to me this morning. She passed the night partly walking about in a rage, partly

trying to throw herself into the river and being afraid to, and partly in the Carlton Hotel. She told me of the

PICKERING[rising also] My dear Mrs. Higgins, shes been telling you stories. We didnt treat her brutally. We

hardly said a word to her; and we parted on particularly good terms. [Turning on Higgins]. Higgins did you

HIGGINS. Just the other way about. She threw my slippers in my face. She behaved in the most outrageous

way. I never gave her the slightest provocation. The slippers came bang into my face the moment I entered

MRS. HIGGINS. I think I know pretty well what you did. The girl is naturally rather affectionate, I think. Isnt

MRS. HIGGINS. Just so. She had become attached to you both. She worked very hard for you, Henry! I dont

think you quite realize what anything in the nature of brain work means to a girl like that. Well, it seems that

when the great day of trial came, and she did this wonderful thing for you without making a single mistake,

you two sat there and never said a word to her, but talked together of how glad you were that it was all over

and how you had been bored with the whole thing. And then you were surprised because she threw your

HIGGINS. We said nothing except that we were tired and wanted to go to bed. Did we, Pick?

MRS. HIGGINS. You didn't thank her, or pet her, or admire her, or tell her how splendid she'd been.

HIGGINS[impatiently] But she knew all about that. We didnt make speeches to her, if thats what you mean.

PICKERING[conscience stricken] Perhaps we were a little inconsiderate. Is she very angry?

MRS. HIGGINS[returning to her place at the writingtable] Well, I'm afraid she wont go back to Wimpole

Street, especially now that Mr. Doolittle is able to keep up the position you have thrust on her; but she says

she is quite willing to meet you on friendly terms and to let bygones be bygones.

MRS. HIGGINS. If you promise to behave yourself, Henry, I'll ask her to come down. If not, go home; for you

HIGGINS. Oh, all right. Very well. Pick: you behave yourself. Let us put on our best Sunday manners for this

creature that we picked out of the mud. [He flings himself sulkily into the Elizabethan chair].

DOOLITTLE[remonstrating] Now, now, Henry Higgins! have some consideration for my feelings as a middle

MRS. HIGGINS. Remember your promise, Henry. [She presses the bellbutton on the writingtable]. Mr.

Doolittle: will you be so good as to step out on the balcony for a moment. I dont want Eliza to have the shock

DOOLITTLE. As you wish, lady. Anything to help Henry to keep her off my hands. [He disappears through

A pause. Higgins throws back his head; stretches out his legs; and begins to whistle.

HIGGINS[springing up, out of patience] Where the devil is that girl? Are we to wait here all day?

Eliza enters, sunny, selfpossessed, and giving a staggeringly convincing exhibition of ease of manner. She

carries a little workbasket, and is very much at home. Pickering is too much taken aback to rise.

LIZA. But of course you are: you are never ill. So glad to see you again, Colonel Pickering. [He rises hastily;

and they shake hands]. Quite chilly this morning, isnt it? [She sits down on his left. He sits beside her].

HIGGINS. Dont you dare try this game on me. I taught it to you; and it doesnt take me in. Get up and come

Eliza takes a piece of needlework from her basket, and begins to stitch at it, without taking the least notice of

MRS. HIGGINS. Very nicely put, indeed, Henry. No woman could resist such an invitation.

HIGGINS. You let her alone, mother. Let her speak for herself. You will jolly soon see whether she has an

idea that I havnt put into her head or a word that I havnt put into her mouth. I tell you I have created this thing

out of the squashed cabbage leaves of Covent Garden; and now she pretends to play the fine lady with me.

LIZA[to Pickering, taking no apparent notice of Higgins, and working away deftly] Will you drop me

PICKERING. Oh dont. You mustnt think of it as an experiment. It shocks me, somehow.

LIZA[continuing quietly] but I owe so much to you that I should be very unhappy if you forgot me.

LIZA. It's not because you paid for my dresses. I know you are generous to everybody with money. But it was

from you that I learnt really nice manners; and that is what makes one a lady, isnt it? You see it was so very

difficult for me with the example of Professor Higgins always before me. I was brought up to be just like

him, unable to control myself, and using bad language on the slightest provocation. And I should never have

LIZA. Oh, I didnt mean it either, when I was a flower girl. It was only my way. But you see I did it; and thats

PICKERING. No doubt. Still, he taught you to speak; and I couldnt have done that, you know.

LIZA[continuing] It was just like learning to dance in the fashionable way: there was nothing more than that

LIZA[stopping her work for a moment] Your calling me Miss Doolittle that day when I first came to

Wimpole Street. That was the beginning of selfrespect for me. [She resumes her stitching]. And there were

a hundred little things you never noticed, because they came naturally to you. Things about standing up and

LIZA. Yes: things that shewed you thought and felt about me as if I were something better than a

scullerymaid; though of course I know you would have been just the same to a scullerymaid if she had

been let in the drawingroom. You never took off your boots in the dining room when I was there.

PICKERING. You mustnt mind that. Higgins takes off his boots all over the place.

LIZA. I know. I am not blaming him. It is his way, isnt it? But it made such a difference to me that you didnt

do it. You see, really and truly, apart from the things anyone can pick up (the dressing and the proper way of

speaking, and so on), the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how shes

treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and

always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will.

PICKERING[laughing] Why dont you slang back at him? Dont stand it. It would do him a lot of good.

LIZA. I cant. I could have done it once; but now I cant go back to it. Last night, when I was wandering about,

a girl spoke to me; and I tried to get back into the old way with her; but it was no use. You told me, you

know, that when a child is brought to a foreign country, it picks up the language in a few weeks, and forgets

its own. Well, I am a child in your country. I have forgotten my own language, and can speak nothing but

yours. Thats the real breakoff with the corner of Tottenham Court Road. Leaving Wimpole Street finishes it.

PICKERING[much alarmed] Oh! but youre coming back to Wimpole Street, arnt you? Youll forgive Higgins?

HIGGINS[rising] Forgive! Will she, by George! Let her go. Let her find out how she can get on without us.

Doolittle appears at the centre window. With a look of dignified reproach at Higgins, he comes slowly and

silently to his daughter, who, with her back to the window, is unconscious of his approach.

LIZA. No: Not now. Never again. I have learnt my lesson. I dont believe I could utter one of the old sounds if

I tried. [Doolittle touches her on her left shoulder. She drops her work, losing her selfpossession utterly at

Aaaaahowooh! Victory! Victory! [He throws himself on the divan, folding his arms, and spraddling

DOOLITTLE. Can you blame the girl? Dont look at me like that, Eliza. It aint my fault. Ive come into some

DOOLITTLE. I have. But I'm dressed something special today. I'm going to St. George's, Hanover Square.

PICKERING[quietly] He ought to, Eliza. [To Doolittle] Why has she changed her mind?

DOOLITTLE[sadly] Intimidated, Governor. Intimidated. Middle class morality claims its victim. Wont you

LIZA. If the Colonel says I must, I I'll [almost sobbing] I'll demean myself. And get insulted for my pains,

DOOLITTLE. Dont be afraid: she never comes to words with anyone now, poor woman! respectability has

PICKERING[squeezing Eliza's elbow gently] Be kind to them, Eliza. Make the best of it.

LIZA[forcing a little smile for him through her vexation] Oh well, just to shew theres no ill feeling. I'll be

DOOLITTLE[sitting down beside Pickering] I feel uncommon nervous about the ceremony, Colonel. I wish

PICKERING. But youve been through it before, man. You were married to Eliza's mother.

DOOLITTLE. No: that aint the natural way, Colonel: it's only the middle class way. My way was always the

undeserving way. But dont say nothing to Eliza. She dont know: I always had a delicacy about telling her.

MRS. HIGGINS. May I come, Mr. Doolittle? I should be very sorry to miss your wedding.

DOOLITTLE. I should indeed be honored by your condescension, maam; and my poor old woman would take

it as a tremenjous compliment. Shes been very low, thinking of the happy days that are no more.

MRS. HIGGINS[rising] I'll order the carriage and get ready. [The men rise, except Higgins]. I shant be more

than fifteen minutes. [As she goes to the door Eliza comes in, hatted and buttoning her gloves]. I'm going to

the church to see your father married, Eliza. You had better come in the brougham with me. Colonel

Mrs. Higgins goes out. Eliza comes to the middle of the room between the centre window and the ottoman.

DOOLITTLE. Bridegroom! What a word! It makes a man realize his position, somehow. [He takes up his hat

DOOLITTLE[sad but magnanimous] They played you off very cunning, Eliza, them two sportsmen. If it had

been only one of them, you could have nailed him. But you see, there was two; and one of them chaperoned

the other, as you might say. [To Pickering] It was artful of you, Colonel; but I bear no malice: I should have

done the same myself. I been the victim of one woman after another all my life; and I dont grudge you two

getting the better of Eliza. I shant interfere. It's time for us to go, Colonel. So long, Henry. See you in St.

Eliza goes out on the balcony to avoid being alone with Higgins. He rises and joins her there. She

immediately comes back into the room and makes for the door; but he goes along the balcony quickly and

HIGGINS. Well, Eliza, youve had a bit of your own back, as you call it. Have you had enough? and are you

LIZA. You want me back only to pick up your slippers and put up with your tempers and fetch and carry for

HIGGINS. About you, not about me. If you come back I shall treat you just as I have always treated you. I cant

change my nature; and I dont intend to change my manners. My manners are exactly the same as Colonel

LIZA. I see. [She turns away composedly, and sits on the ottoman, facing the window]. The same to

HIGGINS[grinning, a little taken down] Without accepting the comparison at all points, Eliza, it's quite true

that your father is not a snob, and that he will be quite at home in any station of life to which his eccentric

destiny may call him. [Seriously] 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 thirdclass carriages, and one soul is as good as another.

HIGGINS[irritated] The question is not whether I treat you rudely, but whether you ever heard me treat

LIZA[with sudden sincerity] I dont care how you treat me. I dont mind your swearing at me. I dont mind a

black eye: Ive had one before this. But [standing up and facing him] I wont be passed over.

HIGGINS. Then get out of my way; for I wont stop for you. You talk about me as if I were a motor bus.

LIZA. So you are a motor bus: all bounce and go, and no consideration for anyone. But I can do without you:

LIZA[wounded, getting away from him to the other side of the ottoman with her face to the hearth] I know

HIGGINS[arrogant] I can do without anybody. I have my own soul: my own spark of divine fire. But [with

sudden humility] I shall miss you, Eliza. [He sits down near her on the ottoman]. I have learnt something

from your idiotic notions: I confess that humbly and gratefully. And I have grown accustomed to your voice

LIZA. Well, you have both of them on your gramophone and in your book of photographs. When you feel

HIGGINS. I cant turn your soul on. Leave me those feelings; and you can take away the voice and the face.

LIZA. Oh, you a r e a devil. You can twist the heart in a girl as easy as some could twist her arms to hurt her.

Mrs. Pearce warned me. Time and again she has wanted to leave you; and you always got round her at the

HIGGINS. I care for life, for humanity; and you are a part of it that has come my way and been built into my

HIGGINS. Commercial principles, Eliza. Like [reproducing her Covent Garden pronunciation with

HIGGINS. I have never sneered in my life. Sneering doesnt become either the human face or the human soul. I

am expressing my righteous contempt for Commercialism. I dont and wont trade in affection. You call me a

brute because you couldnt buy a claim on me by fetching my slippers and finding my spectacles. You were a

fool: I think a woman fetching a man's slippers is a disgusting sight: did I ever fetch y o u r slippers? I think a

good deal more of you for throwing them in my face. No use slaving for me and then saying you want to be

cared for: who cares for a slave? If you come back, come back for the sake of good fellowship; for youll get

nothing else. Youve had a thousand times as much out of me as I have out of you; and if you dare to set up

your little dog's tricks of fetching and carrying slippers against my creation of a Duchess Eliza, I'll slam the

HIGGINS. Would the world ever have been made if its maker had been afraid of making trouble? Making life

means making trouble. Theres only one way of escaping trouble; and thats killing things. Cowards, you

LIZA. I'm no preacher: I dont notice things like that. I notice that you dont notice me.

HIGGINS[jumping up and walking about intolerantly] Eliza: youre an idiot. I waste the treasures of my

Miltonic mind by spreading them before you. Once for all, understand that I go my way and do my work

without caring twopence what happens to either of us. I am not intimidated, like your father and your

HIGGINS[bouncing up on his knees on the ottoman and leaning over it to her] For the fun of it. Thats why I

LIZA[with averted face] And you may throw me out tomorrow if I dont do everything you want me to?

HIGGINS. Yes; and you may walk out tomorrow if I dont do everything y o u want me to.

LIZA. Oh! if I only c o u l d go back to my flower basket! I should be independent of both you and father and

all the world! Why did you take my independence from me? Why did I give it up? I'm a slave now, for all my

HIGGINS. Not a bit. I'll adopt you as my daughter and settle money on you if you like. Or would you rather

LIZA[looking fiercely round at him] I wouldnt marry y o u if you asked me; and youre nearer my age than

LIZA[losing her temper and rising] I'll talk as I like. Youre not my teacher now.

HIGGINS[reflectively] I dont suppose Pickering would, though. Hes as confirmed an old bachelor as I am.

LIZA. Thats not what I want; and dont you think it. Ive always had chaps enough wanting me that way.

HIGGINS[disagreeably surprised] Damn his impudence! [He recoils and finds himself sitting on his heels].

LIZA. Freddy's not a fool. And if hes weak and poor and wants me, may be hed make me happier than my

LIZA. Perhaps I could make something of him. But I never thought of us making anything of one another; and

HIGGINS. In short, you want me to be as infatuated about you as Freddy? Is that it?

LIZA. No I dont. Thats not the sort of feeling I want from you. And dont you be too sure of yourself or of me.

I could have been a bad girl if I'd liked. Ive seen more of some things than you, for all your learning. Girls

like me can drag gentlemen down to make love to them easy enough. And they wish each other dead the next

LIZA[much troubled] I want a little kindness. I know I'm a common ignorant girl, and you a booklearned

gentleman; but I'm not dirt under your feet. What I done [correcting herself] what I did was not for the

dresses and the taxis: I did it because we were pleasant together and I come came to care for you; not to

want you to make love to me, and not forgetting the difference between us, but more friendly like.

HIGGINS. Well, of course. Thats just how I feel. And how Pickering feels. Eliza: youre a fool.

LIZA. Thats not a proper answer to give me [she sinks on the chair at the writingtable in tears].

HIGGINS. It's all youll get until you stop being a common idiot. If youre going to be a lady, youll have to give

up feeling neglected if the men you know dont spend half their time snivelling over you and the other half

giving you black eyes. If you cant stand the coldness of my sort of life, and the strain of it, go back to the

gutter. Work til you are more a brute than a human being; and then cuddle and squabble and drink til you fall

asleep. Oh, it's a fine life, the life of the gutter. It's real: it's warm: it's violent: you can feel it through the

thickest skin: you can taste it and smell it without any training or any work. Not like Science and Literature

and Classical Music and Philosophy and Art. You find me cold, unfeeling, selfish, dont you? Very well: be

off with you to the sort of people you like. Marry some sentimental hog or other with lots of money, and a

thick pair of lips to kiss you with and a thick pair of boots to kick you with. If you cant appreciate what youve

LIZA[desperate] Oh, you are a cruel tyrant. I cant talk to you: you turn everything against me: I'm always in

the wrong. But you know very well all the time that youre nothing but a bully. You know I cant go back to

the gutter, as you call it, and that I have no real friends in the world but you and the Colonel. You know well I

couldnt bear to live with a low common man after you two; and it's wicked and cruel of you to insult me by

pretending I could. You think I must go back to Wimpole Street because I have nowhere else to go but

father's. But dont you be too sure that you have me under your feet to be trampled on and talked down. I'll

HIGGINS[sitting down beside her] Rubbish! you shall marry an ambassador. You shall marry the

GovernorGeneral of India or the LordLieutenant of Ireland, or somebody who wants a deputyqueen. I'm

LIZA. You think I like you to say that. But I havnt forgot what you said a minute ago; and I wont be coaxed

round as if I was a baby or a puppy. If I cant have kindness, I'll have independence.

HIGGINS. Independence? Thats middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of

LIZA[rising determinedly] I'll let you see whether I'm dependent on you. If you can preach, I can teach. I'll go

HIGGINS[rising in a fury] What! That impostor! that humbug! that toadying ignoramus! Teach him my

methods! my discoveries! You take one step in his direction and I'll wring your neck. [He lays hands on her].

LIZA[defiantly nonresistant] Wring away. What do I care? I knew youd strike me some day. [He lets her

go, stamping with rage at having forgotten himself, and recoils so hastily that he stumbles back into his seat

on the ottoman]. Aha! Now I know how to deal with you. What a fool I was not to think of it before! You

cant take away the knowledge you gave me. You said I had a finer ear than you. And I can be civil and kind

to people, which is more than you can. Aha! Thats done you, Henry Higgins, it has. Now I dont care that

[snapping her fingers] for your bullying and your big talk. I'll advertize it in the papers that your duchess is

only a flower girl that you taught, and that she'll teach anybody to be a duchess just the same in six months

for a thousand guineas. Oh, when I think of myself crawling under your feet and being trampled on and called

names, when all the time I had only to lift up my finger to be as good as you, I could just kick myself.

HIGGINS[wondering at her] You damned impudent slut, you! But it's better than snivelling; better than

fetching slippers and finding spectacles, isnt it? [Rising] By George, Eliza, I said I'd make a woman of you;

LIZA. Yes: you turn round and make up to me now that I'm not afraid of you, and can do without you.

HIGGINS. Of course I do, you little fool. Five minutes ago you were like a millstone round my neck. Now

youre a tower of strength: a consort battleship. You and I and Pickering will be three old bachelors together

Mrs. Higgins returns, dressed for the wedding. Eliza instantly becomes cool and elegant.

MRS. HIGGINS. Certainly not. He cant behave himself in church. He makes remarks out loud all the time on

LIZA. Then I shall not see you again, Professor. Good bye. [She goes to the door].

HIGGINS. Goodbye, mother. [He is about to kiss her, when he recollects something]. Oh, by the way, Eliza,

order a ham and a Stilton cheese, will you? And buy me a pair of reindeer gloves, number eights, and a tie to

match that new suit of mine, at Eale & Binman's. You can choose the color. [His cheerful, careless, vigorous

MRS. HIGGINS. I'm afraid youve spoiled that girl, Henry. But never mind, dear: I'll buy you the tie and gloves.

They kiss. Mrs. Higgins runs out. Higgins, left alone, rattles his cash in his pocket; chuckles; and disports

THE rest of the story need not be shown in action, and indeed, would hardly need telling if our imaginations

were not so enfeebled by their lazy dependence on the readymades and reachmedowns of the ragshop in

which Romance keeps its stock of "happy endings" to misfit all stories. Now, the history of Eliza Doolittle,

though called a romance because of the transfiguration it records seems exceedingly improbable, is common

enough. Such transfigurations have been achieved by hundreds of resolutely ambitious young women since

Nell Gwynne set them the example by playing queens and fascinating kings in the theatre in which she began

by selling oranges. Nevertheless, people in all directions have assumed, for no other reason than that she

became the heroine of a romance, that she must have married the hero of it. This is unbearable, not only

because her little drama, if acted on such a thoughtless assumption, must be spoiled, but because the true

sequel is patent to anyone with a sense of human nature in general, and of feminine instinct in particular.

Eliza, in telling Higgins she would not marry him if he asked her, was not coquetting: she was announcing a

wellconsidered decision. When a bachelor interests, and dominates, and teaches, and becomes important to

a spinster, as Higgins with Eliza, she always, if she has character enough to be capable of it, considers very

seriously indeed whether she will play for becoming that bachelor's wife, especially if he is so little interested

in marriage that a determined and devoted woman might capture him if she set herself resolutely to do it. Her

decision will depend a good deal on whether she is really free to choose; and that, again, will depend on her

age and income. If she is at the end of her youth, and has no security for her livelihood, she will marry him

because she must marry anybody who will provide for her. But at Eliza's age a goodlooking girl does not

feel that pressure: she feels free to pick and choose. She is therefore guided by her instinct in the matter.

Eliza's instinct tells her not to marry Higgins. It does not tell her to give him up. It is not in the slightest doubt

as to his remaining one of the strongest personal interests in her life. It would be very sorely strained if there

was another woman likely to supplant her with him. But as she feels sure of him on that last point, she has no

doubt at all as to her course, and would not have any, even if the difference of twenty years in age, which

As our own instincts are not appealed to by her conclusion, let us see whether we cannot discover some

reason in it. When Higgins excused his indifference to young women on the ground that they had an

irresistible rival in his mother, he gave the clue to his inveterate oldbachelordom. The case is uncommon

only to the extent that remarkable mothers are uncommon. If an imaginative boy has a sufficiently rich

mother who has intelligence, personal grace, dignity of character without harshness, and a cultivated sense of

the best art of her time to enable her to make her house beautiful, she sets a standard for him against which

very few women can struggle, besides effecting for him a disengagement of his affections, his sense of

beauty, and his idealism from his specifically sexual impulses. This makes him a standing puzzle to the huge

number of uncultivated people who have been brought up in tasteless homes by commonplace or disagreeable

parents, and to whom, consequently, literature, painting, sculpture, music, and affectionate personal relations

come as modes of sex if they come at all. The word passion means nothing else to them; and that Higgins

could have a passion for phonetics and idealize his mother instead of Eliza, would seem to them absurd and

unnatural. Nevertheless, when we look round and see that hardly anyone is too ugly or disagreeable to find a

wife or a husband if he or she wants one, whilst many old maids and bachelors are above the average in

quality and culture, we cannot help suspecting that the disentanglement of sex from the associations with

which it is so commonly confused, a disentanglement which persons of genius achieve by sheer intellectual

Now, though Eliza was incapable of thus explaining to herself Higgins's formidable powers of resistance to

the charm that prostrated Freddy at the first glance, she was instinctively aware that she could never obtain a

complete grip of him, or come between him and his mother (the first necessity of the married woman). To put

it shortly, she knew that for some mysterious reason he had not the makings of a married man in him,

according to her conception of a husband as one to whom she would be his nearest and fondest and warmest

interest. Even had there been no motherrival, she would still have refused to accept an interest in herself that

was secondary to philosophic interests. Had Mrs. Higgins died, there would still have been Milton and the

Universal Alphabet. Landor's remark that to those who have the greatest power of loving, love is a secondary

affair, would not have recommended Landor to Eliza. Put that along with her resentment of Higgins's

domineering superiority, and her mistrust of his coaxing cleverness in getting round her and evading her

wrath when he had gone too far with his impetuous bullying, and you will see that Eliza's instinct had good

And now, whom did Eliza marry? For if Higgins was a predestinate old bachelor, she was most certainly not

a predestinate old maid. Well, that can be told very shortly to those who have not guessed it from the

Almost immediately after Eliza is stung into proclaiming her considered determination not to marry Higgins,

she mentions the fact that young Mr. Frederick Eynsford Hill is pouring out his love for her daily through the

post. Now Freddy is young, practically twenty years younger than Higgins: he is a gentleman (or, as Eliza

would qualify him, a toff), and speaks like one; he is nicely dressed, is treated by the Colonel as an equal,

loves her unaffectedly, and is not her master, nor ever likely to dominate her in spite of his advantage of

social standing. Eliza has no use for the foolish romantic tradition that all women love to be mastered, if not

actually bullied and beaten. "When you go to women," says Nietzsche, "take your whip with you." Sensible

despots have never confined that precaution to women: they have taken their whips with them when they

have dealt with men, and been slavishly idealized by the men over whom they have flourished the whip much

more than by women. No doubt there are slavish women as well as slavish men; and women, like men,

admire those that are stronger than themselves. But to admire a strong person and to live under that strong

person's thumb are two different things. The weak may not be admired and heroworshipped; but they are by

no means disliked or shunned; and they never seem to have the least difficulty in marrying people who are

too good for them. They may fail in emergencies; but life is not one long emergency: it is mostly a string of

situations for which no exceptional strength is needed, and with which even rather weak people can cope if

they have a stronger partner to help them out. Accordingly, it is a truth everywhere in evidence that strong

people, masculine or feminine, not only do not marry stronger people, but do not shew any preference for

them in selecting their friends. When a lion meets another with a louder roar "the first lion thinks the last a

bore." The man or woman who feels strong enough for two, seeks for every other quality in a partner than

The converse is also true. Weak people want to marry strong people who do not frighten them too much; and

this often leads them to make the mistake we describe metaphorically as "biting off more than they can

chew." They want too much for too little; and when the bargain is unreasonable beyond all bearing, the union

becomes impossible: it ends in the weaker party being either discarded or borne as a cross, which is worse.

People who are not only weak, but silly or obtuse as well, are often in these difficulties.

This being the state of human affairs, what is Eliza fairly sure to do when she is placed between Freddy and

Higgins? Will she look forward to a lifetime of fetching Higgins's slippers or to a lifetime of Freddy fetching

hers? There can be no doubt about the answer. Unless Freddy is biologically repulsive to her, and Higgins

biologically attractive to a degree that overwhelms all her other instincts, she will, if she marries either of

Complications ensued; but they were economic, not romantic. Freddy had no money and no occupation. His

mother's jointure, a last relic of the opulence of Largelady Park, had enabled her to struggle along in

Earlscourt with an air of gentility, but not to procure any serious secondary education for her children, much

less give the boy a profession. A clerkship at thirty shillings a week was beneath Freddy's dignity, and

extremely distasteful to him besides. His prospects consisted of a hope that if he kept up appearances

somebody would do something for him. The something appeared vaguely to his imagination as a private

secretaryship or a sinecure of some sort. To his mother it perhaps appeared as a marriage to some lady of

means who could not resist her boy's niceness. Fancy her feelings when he married a flower girl who had

become d�class�e under extraordinary circumstances which were now notorious!

It is true that Eliza's situation did not seem wholly ineligible. Her father, though formerly a dustman, and now

fantastically disclassed, had become extremely popular in the smartest society by a social talent which

triumphed over every prejudice and every disadvantage. Rejected by the middle class, which he loathed, he

had shot up at once into the highest circles by his wit, his dustmanship (which he carried like a banner), and

his Nietzschean transcendence of good and evil. At intimate ducal dinners he sat on the right hand of the

Duchess; and in country houses he smoked in the pantry and was made much of by the butler when he was

not feeding in the diningroom and being consulted by cabinet ministers. But he found it almost as hard to do

all this on four thousand a year as Mrs. Eynsford Hill to live in Earlscourt on an income so pitiably smaller

that I have not the heart to disclose its exact figure. He absolutely refused to add the last straw to his burden

Thus Freddy and Eliza, now Mr. and Mrs. Eynsford Hill, would have spent a penniless honeymoon but for a

wedding present of �500 from the Colonel to Eliza. It lasted a long time because Freddy did not know how to

spend money, never having had any to spend, and Eliza, socially trained by a pair of old bachelors, wore her

clothes as long as they held together and looked pretty, without the least regard to their being many months

out of fashion. Still, �500 will not last two young people for ever; and they both knew, and Eliza felt as well,

that they must shift for themselves in the end. She could quarter herself on Wimpole Street because it had

come to be her home; but she was quite aware that she ought not to quarter Freddy there, and that it would

Not that the Wimpole Street bachelors objected. When she consulted them, Higgins declined to be bothered

about her housing problem when that solution was so simple. Eliza's desire to have Freddy in the house with

her seemed of no more importance than if she had wanted an extra piece of bedroom furniture. Pleas as to

Freddy's character, and the moral obligation on him to earn his own living, were lost on Higgins. He denied

that Freddy had any character, and declared that if he tried to do any useful work some competent person

would have the trouble of undoing it: a procedure involving a net loss to the community, and great

unhappiness to Freddy himself, who was obviously intended by Nature for such light work as amusing Eliza,

which, Higgins declared, was a much more useful and honorable occupation than working in the city. When

Eliza referred again to her project of teaching phonetics, Higgins abated not a jot of his violent opposition to

it. He said she was not within ten years of being qualified to meddle with his pet subject; and as it was

evident that the Colonel agreed with him, she felt she could not go against them in this grave matter, and that

she had no right, without Higgins's consent, to exploit the knowledge he had given her; for his knowledge

seemed to her as much his private property as his watch: Eliza was no communist. Besides, she was

superstitiously devoted to them both, more entirely and frankly after her marriage than before it.

It was the Colonel who finally solved the problem, which had cost him much perplexed cogitation. He one

day asked Eliza, rather shyly, whether she had quite given up her notion of keeping a flower shop. She

replied that she had thought of it, but had put it out of her head, because the Colonel had said, that day at Mrs.

Higgins's, that it would never do. The Colonel confessed that when he said that, he had not quite recovered

from the dazzling impression of the day before. They broke the matter to Higgins that evening. The sole

comment vouchsafed by him very nearly led to a serious quarrel with Eliza. It was to the effect that she

Freddy himself was next sounded on the subject. He said he had been thinking of a shop himself; though it

had presented itself to his pennilessness as a small place in which Eliza should sell tobacco at one counter

whilst he sold newspapers at the opposite one. But he agreed that it would be extraordinarily jolly to go early

every morning with Eliza to Covent Garden and buy flowers on the scene of their first meeting: a sentiment

which earned him many kisses from his wife. He added that he had always been afraid to propose anything of

the sort, because Clara would make an awful row about a step that must damage her matrimonial chances,

and his mother could not be expected to like it after clinging for so many years to that step of the social

This difficulty was removed by an event highly unexpected by Freddy's mother. Clara, in the course of her

incursions into those artistic circles which were the highest within her reach, discovered that her

conversational qualifications were expected to include a grounding in the novels of Mr. H. G. Wells. She

borrowed them in various directions so energetically that she swallowed them all within two months. The

result was a conversion of a kind quite common today. A modern Acts of the Apostles would fill fifty whole

Poor Clara, who appeared to Higgins and his mother as a disagreeable and ridiculous person, and to her own

mother as in some inexplicable way a social failure, had never seen herself in either light; for, though to some

extent ridiculed and mimicked in West Kensington like everybody else there, she was accepted as a rational

and normal or shall we say inevitable? sort of human being. At worst they called her The Pusher; but to

them no more than to herself had it ever occurred that she was pushing the air, and pushing it in a wrong

direction. Still, she was not happy. She was growing desperate. Her one asset, the fact that her mother was

what the Epsom greengrocer called a carriage lady had no exchange value, apparently. It had prevented her

from getting educated, because the only education she could have afforded was education with the Earlscourt

greengrocer's daughter. It had led her to seek the society of her mother's class; and that class simply would

not have her, because she was much poorer than the greengrocer, and, far from being able to afford a maid,

could not afford even a housemaid, and had to scrape along at home with an illiberally treated general

servant. Under such circumstances nothing could give her an air of being a genuine product of Largelady

Park. And yet its tradition made her regard a marriage with anyone within her reach as an unbearable

humiliation. Commercial people and professional people in a small way were odious to her. She ran after

painters and novelists; but she did not charm them; and her bold attempts to pick up and practise artistic and

literary talk irritated them. She was, in short, an utter failure, an ignorant, incompetent, pretentious,

unwelcome, penniless, useless little snob; and though she did not admit these disqualifications (for nobody

ever faces unpleasant truths of this kind until the possibility of a way out dawns on them) she felt their effects

Clara had a startling eyeopener when, on being suddenly wakened to enthusiasm by a girl of her own age

who dazzled her and produced in her a gushing desire to take her for a model, and gain her friendship, she

discovered that this exquisite apparition had graduated from the gutter in a few months' time. It shook her so

violently, that when Mr. H. G. Wells lifted her on the point of his puissant pen, and placed her at the angle of

view from which the life she was leading and the society to which she clung appeared in its true relation to

real human needs and worthy social structure, he effected a conversion and a conviction of sin comparable to

the most sensational feats of General Booth or Gypsy Smith. Clara's snobbery went bang. Life suddenly

began to move with her. Without knowing how or why, she began to make friends and enemies. Some of the

acquaintances to whom she had been a tedious or indifferent or ridiculous affliction, dropped her: others

became cordial. To her amazement she found that some "quite nice" people were saturated with Wells, and

that this accessibility to ideas was the secret of their niceness. People she had thought deeply religious, and

had tried to conciliate on that tack with disastrous results, suddenly took an interest in her, and revealed a

hostility to conventional religion which she had never conceived possible except among the most desperate

characters. They made her read Galsworthy; and Galsworthy exposed the vanity of Largelady Park and

finished her. It exasperated her to think that the dungeon in which she had languished for so many unhappy

years had been unlocked all the time, and that the impulses she had so carefully struggled with and stifled for

the sake of keeping well with society, were precisely those by which alone she could have come into any sort

of sincere human contact. In the radiance of these discoveries, and the tumult of their reaction, she made a

fool of herself as freely and conspicuously as when she so rashly adopted Eliza's expletive in Mrs. Higgins's

drawingroom; for the newborn Wellsian had to find her bearings almost as ridiculously as a baby; but

nobody hates a baby for its ineptitudes, or thinks the worse of it for trying to eat the matches; and Clara lost

no friends by her follies. They laughed at her to her face this time; and she had to defend herself and fight it

When Freddy paid a visit to Earlscourt (which he never did when he could possibly help it) to make the

desolating announcement that he and his Eliza were thinking of blackening the Largelady scutcheon by

opening a shop, he found the little household already convulsed by a prior announcement from Clara that she

also was going to work in an old furniture shop in Dover Street, which had been started by a fellow Wellsian.

This appointment Clara owed, after all, to her old social accomplishment of Push. She had made up her mind

that, cost what it might, she would see Mr. Wells in the flesh; and she had achieved her end at a garden party.

She had better luck than so rash an enterprise deserved. Mr. Wells came up to her expectations. Age had not

withered him, nor could custom stale his infinite variety in half an hour. His pleasant neatness and

compactness, his small hands and feet, his teeming ready brain, his unaffected accessibility, and a certain fine

apprehensiveness which stamped him as susceptible from his topmost hair to his tipmost toe, proved

irresistible. Clara talked of nothing else for weeks and weeks afterwards. And as she happened to talk to the

lady of the furniture shop, and that lady also desired above all things to know Mr. Wells and sell pretty things

to him, she offered Clara a job on the chance of achieving that end through her.

And so it came about that Eliza's luck held, and the expected opposition to the flower shop melted away. The

shop is in the arcade of a railway station not very far from the Victoria and Albert Museum; and if you live in

Now here is a last opportunity for romance. Would you not like to be assured that the shop was an immense

success, thanks to Eliza's charms and her early business experience in Covent Garden? Alas! the truth is the

truth: the shop did not pay for a long time, simply because Eliza and her Freddy did not know how to keep it.

True, Eliza had not to begin at the very beginning: she knew the names and prices of the cheaper flowers; and

her elation was unbounded when she found that Freddy, like all youths educated at cheap, pretentious, and

thoroughly inefficient schools, knew a little Latin. It was very little, but enough to make him appear to her a

Porson or Bentley, and to put him at his ease with botanical nomenclature. Unfortunately he knew nothing

else; and Eliza, though she could count money up to eighteen shillings or so, and had acquired a certain

familiarity with the language of Milton from her struggles to qualify herself for winning Higgins's bet, could

not write out a bill without utterly disgracing the establishment. Freddy's power of stating in Latin that Balbus

built a wall and that Gaul was divided into three parts did not carry with it the slightest knowledge of

accounts or business: Colonel Pickering had to explain to him what a cheque book and a bank account meant.

And the pair were by no means easily teachable. Freddy backed up Eliza in her obstinate refusal to believe

that they could save money by engaging a bookkeeper with some knowledge of the business. How, they

argued, could you possibly save money by going to extra expense when you already could not make both

ends meet? But the Colonel, after making the ends meet over and over again, at last gently insisted; and Eliza,

humbled to the dust by having to beg from him so often, and stung by the uproarious derision of Higgins, to

whom the notion of Freddy succeeding at anything was a joke that never palled, grasped the fact that

On the piteous spectacle of the pair spending their evenings in shorthand schools and polytechnic classes,

learning bookkeeping and typewriting with incipient junior clerks, male and female, from the elementary

schools, let me not dwell. There were even classes at the London School of Economics, and a humble

personal appeal to the director of that institution to recommend a course bearing on the flower business. He,

being a humorist, explained to them the method of the celebrated Dickensian essay on Chinese Metaphysics

by the gentleman who read an article on China and an article on Metaphysics and combined the information.

He suggested that they should combine the London School with Kew Gardens. Eliza, to whom the procedure

of the Dickensian gentleman seemed perfectly correct (as in fact it was) and not in the least funny (which was

only her ignorance) took his advice with entire gravity. But the effort that cost her the deepest humiliation

was a request to Higgins, whose pet artistic fancy, next to Milton's verse, was caligraphy, and who himself

wrote a most beautiful Italian hand, that he would teach her to write. He declared that she was congenitally

incapable of forming a single letter worthy of the least of Milton's words; but she persisted; and again he

suddenly threw himself into the task of teaching her with a combination of stormy intensity, concentrated

patience, and occasional bursts of interesting disquisition on the beauty and nobility, the august mission and

destiny, of human handwriting. Eliza ended by acquiring an extremely uncommercial script which was a

positive extension of her personal beauty, and spending three times as much on stationery as anyone else

because certain qualities and shapes of paper became indispensable to her. She could not even address an

Their commercial school days were a period of disgrace and despair for the young couple. They seemed to be

learning nothing about flower shops. At last they gave it up as hopeless, and shook the dust of the shorthand

schools, and the polytechnics, and the London School of Economics from their feet for ever. Besides, the

business was in some mysterious way beginning to take care of itself. They had somehow forgotten their

objections to employing other people. They came to the conclusion that their own way was the best, and that

they had really a remarkable talent for business. The Colonel, who had been compelled for some years to

keep a sufficient sum on current account at his bankers to make up their deficits, found that the provision was

unnecessary: the young people were prospering. It is true that there was not quite fair play between them and

their competitors in trade. Their weekends in the country cost them nothing, and saved them the price of

their Sunday dinners; for the motor car was the Colonel's; and he and Higgins paid the hotel bills. Mr. F. Hill,

florist and greengrocer (they soon discovered that there was money in asparagus; and asparagus led to other

vegetables), had an air which stamped the business as classy; and in private life he was still Frederick

Eynsford Hill, Esquire. Not that there was any swank about him: nobody but Eliza knew that he had been

That is all. That is how it has turned out. It is astonishing how much Eliza still manages to meddle in the

housekeeping at Wimpole Street in spite of the shop and her own family. And it is notable that though she

never nags her husband, and frankly loves the Colonel as if she were his favorite daughter, she has never got

out of the habit of nagging Higgins that was established on the fatal night when she won his bet for him. She

snaps his head off on the faintest provocation, or on none. He no longer dares to tease her by assuming an

abysmal inferiority of Freddy's mind to his own. He storms and bullies and derides; but she stands up to him

so ruthlessly that the Colonel has to ask her from time to time to be kinder to Higgins; and it is the only

request of his that brings a mulish expression into her face. Nothing but some emergency or calamity great

enough to break down all likes and dislikes, and throw them both back on their common humanity and may

they be spared any such trial! will ever alter this. She knows that Higgins does not need her, just as her

father did not need her. The very scrupulousness with which he told her that day that he had become used to

having her there, and dependent on her for all sorts of little services, and that he should miss her if she went

away (it would never have occurred to Freddy or the Colonel to say anything of the sort) deepens her inner

certainty that she is "no more to him than them slippers", yet she has a sense, too, that his indifference is

deeper than the infatuation of commoner souls. She is immensely interested in him. She has even secret

mischievous moments in which she wishes she could get him alone, on a desert island, away from all ties and

with nobody else in the world to consider, and just drag him off his pedestal and see him making love like

any common man. We all have private imaginations of that sort. But when it comes to business, to the life

that she really leads as distinguished from the life of dreams and fancies, she likes Freddy and she likes the

Colonel; and she does not like Higgins and Mr. Doolittle. Galatea never does quite like Pygmalion: his