“YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS”
Eight-year-old
Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York’s Sun,
and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21,
1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since
become history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part
or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials,
and on posters and stamps
THE EDITORIAL
DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
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 eternal 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 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 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 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. |