deals as little with very low as with very high stations in life.  She does not go lower than the Miss Steeles, Mrs. Elton, and John Thorpe, people of bad taste and underbred manners, such as are actually found sometimes mingling with better society.  She has nothing resembling the Brangtons, or Mr. Dubster and his friend Tom Hicks, with whom Madame D’Arblay loved to season her stories, and to produce striking contrasts to her well bred characters.

[Steventon Parsonage:  Parsonage.jpg]

CHAPTER II.

Description of Steventon—­Life at Steventon—­Changes of Habits and Customs in the last Century.

As the first twenty-five years, more than half of the brief life of Jane Austen, were spent in the parsonage of Steventon, some description of that place ought to be given.  Steventon is a small rural village upon the chalk hills of north Hants, situated in a winding valley about seven miles from Basingstoke.  The South-Western railway crosses it by a short embankment, and, as it curves round, presents a good view of it on the left hand to those who are travelling down the line, about three miles before entering the tunnel under Popham Beacon.  It may be known to some sportsmen, as lying in one of the best portions of the Vine Hunt.  It is certainly not a picturesque country; it presents no grand or extensive views; but the features are small rather than plain.  The surface continually swells and sinks, but the hills are not bold, nor the valleys deep; and though it is sufficiently well clothed with woods and hedgerows, yet the poverty of the soil in most places prevents the timber from attaining a large size.  Still it has its beauties.  The lanes wind along in a natural curve, continually fringed with irregular borders of native turf, and lead to pleasant nooks and corners.  One who knew and loved it well very happily expressed its quiet charms, when he wrote

   True taste is not fastidious, nor rejects,
   Because they may not come within the rule
   Of composition pure and picturesque,
   Unnumbered simple scenes which fill the leaves
   Of Nature’s sketch book.

Of this somewhat tame country, Steventon, from the fall of the ground, and the abundance of its timber, is certainly one of the prettiest spots; yet one cannot be surprised that, when Jane’s mother, a little before her marriage, was shown the scenery of her future home, she should have thought it unattractive, compared with the broad river, the rich valley, and the noble hills which she had been accustomed to behold at her native home near Henley-upon-Thames.