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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. |
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"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 [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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