Classic Book Review Charity Style...

So I have discovered a new way to get my reading in while doing laundry, organizing, scrubbing the kitchen, and getting dinner ready:  My MP3 player with free downloaded books from http://www.librivox.org/ .  I chose to start with the above 3 books: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Wuthering Heights. It's been a couple weeks since I finished the Wuthering Heights, the last of the 3.  I 've been pondering on them, and while there and many interesting morals, the outstanding theme for me in all three of them, for this reading, has been the manners and proper language of that time, early 1800's.  All three books have the characters placed in the upper middle class. While none of them had proper titles such as Lord or Lady, they all had servents and did not participate in day to day household duties as meal prep, laundry (which is why we should be easy on ourselves when we can't get it all done, those really rich people have maids, cooks, gardeners, nannies) .  One of the distiguishing differences between the servents and their masters,or upper and lower classes were their language and manner. The lower class had a coarseness about them, I just googled the definition of coarse manners and it was exactly what I was trying to say: Of low, common, or inferior quality. Lacking in delicacy or refinement: coarse manners. Now in America, the land of the free, there is not an official class system.  There are divisions between rich and poor, but there are no laws keeping people in the place they were born. Everyone can choose how they act and speak.  I feel that polite manners are becoming scarce, the type of language that shows refinement and thoughtfulness are becoming a thing of the past. It is pervasive in the media and communities.  It doesn't mean we have to follow along, we can be make a change in ourselves against the tide of ignorance.  I have made an effort to increase my thoughtfulness and politeness in speech and actions for the past two weeks.  I have been surprised at how NOT natural it came. I tend to think of myself first instead of helping others first, and it takes concious effort to change. But that is the last point I wanted to bring out, is that we CAN change, that's what's so beautiful about this life and this country, we have the freedom to carve out our own lifestyle and increase our capability to acquire refined manners in action, thought and speech.  (and do our own laundry, cook our own meals, raise our own children....;O)