"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 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."...
From: The
Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real