hewn:
2 years ago • 6 notes“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were
lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came
to tidy the room. “Does it mean having
things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a
thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long,
long time, not just to play with, but Really
loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always
truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked,
“or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You
become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen
often to people who break easily, or have sharp
edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the
time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and
your eyes drop out and you get all loose in
the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at
all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to
people who don’t understand.”- Marjory Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
