Yes,
Virginia...
Yes,
Virginia...
EDITOR’S
NOTE:
The
following editorial, perhaps the most famous ever written, appeared in The New
York Sun in 1897 and remains appropriate for this holiday season 103 years later.
Is
there a Santa Claus?
We
take pleasure in answering at once and 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 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
eternal life 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 they
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
may 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, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and
picture the supernatural 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 he lives forever. A thousand years from
now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to
make glad the heart of childhood.
Saint
John Times-Globe, Friday, December 22, 2000
