I'm freely plagiarizing this from the New York Sun. Kids grow up too quick, and perhaps you may want to share this with your children, or your grandchildren, as Christmas is fast upon us. Merry Christmas to all, and a Prosperous New Year as well.
Eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years
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.
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 [what] 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.
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