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Yes, Virginia
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Editorial of The New York Sun
December 21, 2012
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
115 West Ninety Fifth Street
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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"Is There a Santa Claus?" reprinted from the September 21, 1897, number
of The New York Sun.
Click on the Internet link here
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