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Yes Virginia, There Is A Santa
Claus
Editorial Page, New York Sun,
1897
We take pleasure in answering thus
prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great
gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The
Sun:
Dear Editor---
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends
say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so."
Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia
O'Hanlon
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected
by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They
think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All
minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great
universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared
with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of
grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a
Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist,
and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.
Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as
dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no
poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no
enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood
fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You
might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to
watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you
did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa
Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in
the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see
fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are
not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and
unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what
makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not
the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that
ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside
that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it
all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and
abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A
thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will
continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
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