The Velveteen Rabbit

There was once a soft fabric 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 genuine thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen. On Christmas morning, when he sat wedged at 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 soft fabric Rabbit was forgotten.

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 soft fabric, some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him. The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked down on everyone else; they were full of modern ideas, and pretended they were genuine. The model boat, who had lived through two seasons and lost most of his paint, caught the tone from them and never missed a chance to refer to his rigging in technical terms. The Rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn’t know that genuine rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with wood shavings like himself, and he understood that wood shavings were quite out of date and should never be mentioned in modern circles.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 Government. Between them all the poor little Rabbit was made to feel very insignificant and ordinary, and the only one who was kind to him at all was the Skin Horse.