but there's one other thing I remember,and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:
god's loyal love couldn't have run out, his merciful love couldn't have dried up.
they're created new every morning. how great your faithfulness!
you've been on a great adventure, and at the end of great adventures everybody wants the same thing...a happy ending.
the skin horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. the was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail and been pulled out to string bead necklaces. he was so wise, for he had been a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away and he knew that they were only toys and would never turn into anything wise. for nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old an wise and experienced like the skin horse understand all about it. "what is Real" asked the rabbit on day when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before nana came in to clean 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 often happen to poeple 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 shbby. 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. -the velveteen rabbit |