This
question misunderstands Shaw's quote in the preface to . When Shaw mentions
"touches" of Sweet in the play, he means Henry Sweet, a renowned phonetician and
grammarian who studied accents and pronunciation, just as Higgins does. What Shaw writes is the
following:
With Higgins's physique and temperament Sweet
might have set the Thames on fire.
When Shaw adds that
there are "touches of Sweet " in the play, he is not referring to "sweet"
aspects in Henry Higgins' personality. According to Shaw's preface, Henry Sweet was anything but
"sweet," having a "Satanic contempt" for people who disagreed with his
views.
Nevertheless, the question asks us to explore whether Higgins has a
"sweet" side or "pathos" to his character. Higgins is rude from beginning to
end, but his pathos is that he is rude without any intention of being spiteful or malicious. He
is rude simply because he speaks his mind bluntly. There is a pathos in his blindness to how
much he bullies Eliza and the extent to which he treats people as objects to be used rather than
as human beings. His pathos may lie in how often he lacks self-awareness of the ways in which he
offends people.
For despite all his rudeness and bullying, Higgins also has
moments of insight that add pathos to his character. When he and Eliza are quarreling and she
says she wants to be independent, he says:
"We are all dependent on one
another, every soul of us on earth."
A few moments later, he
acknowledges his appreciation of her, revealing that he can have some awareness of
others:
"Five minutes ago you
were like a millstone round my
neck. Now you're a tower of strength: a consort battleship. You and I and Pickering will be
three old bachelors together instead of only two men and a silly
girl."
We feel sympathy for Higgins because he is trying to be kind but
doesn't understand that Eliza has no desire to be an "old bachelor" like
him.
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