\u201cWhat is REAL?\u201d asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. \u201cDoes it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cReal isn\u2019t how you are made,\u201d said the Skin Horse. \u201cIt\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDoes is hurt?\u201d asked the Rabbit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSometimes,\u201d said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. \u201cWhen you are Real you don\u2019t mind being hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDoes it happen all at once, like being wound up,\u201d he asked, \u201cor bit by bit?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t happen all at once,\u201d said the Skin Horse. \u201cYou become. It takes a long time. That\u2019s why it doesn\u2019t happen 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 loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don\u2019t matter at all, because once you are Real you can\u2019t be ugly, except to people who don\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Velveteen Rabbit<\/em> (1922)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cWhat is REAL?\u201d asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","content-wrap"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paXhwV-62","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timewords.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timewords.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timewords.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timewords.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timewords.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.timewords.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":375,"href":"http:\/\/www.timewords.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions\/375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timewords.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timewords.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timewords.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}