Description
The Velveteen Rabbit
HERE was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really
splendid. He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was
spotted brown and white, he had real thread whiskers, and his ears
were lined with pink sateen. On Christmas morning, when he sat wedged
in the top of the Boy’s stocking, with a sprig of holly between his
paws, the effect was charming.
There were other things in the stocking, nuts and oranges and a toy
engine, and chocolate almonds and a clockwork mouse, but the Rabbit
was quite the best of all. For at least two hours the Boy loved him,
and then Aunts and Uncles came to dinner, and there was a great
rustling of tissue paper and unwrapping of parcels, and in the
excitement of looking at all the new presents the Velveteen Rabbit was
forgotten.
Christmas Morning
For a long time he lived in the toy cupboard or on the nursery floor,
and no one thought very much about him. He was naturally shy, and
being only made of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quite
snubbed him. The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked down
upon every one else; they were full of modern ideas, and pretended
they were real. The model boat, who had lived through two seasons and
lost most of his paint, caught the tone from them and never missed an
opportunity of referring to his rigging in technical terms. The Rabbit
could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn’t know that
real rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust
like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out-of-date and
should never be mentioned in modern circles. Even Timothy, the jointed
wooden lion, who was made by the disabled soldiers, and should have
had broader views, put on airs and pretended he was connected with
