Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa
Dear Editor. I am eight years old. Some of my
little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says
If you see it in The Sun, it is so. Please tell me the truth:
is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O Hanlon, 115 West Ninety-Fifth Street,
New York, NY
(the year is 1897)
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, and 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 our 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 to 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 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 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 un-seeable
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 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 children.
Casual Essays of the Sun.
Postscript:
Virginia O'Hanlon was a graduate of Hunter
College with a Bachelor of Arts degree at age 21.
The following year she received her Master's from
Columbia, and in 1912 she began teaching in the New
York City school system. She later became a principal.
After 47 years, she retired as an educator.
Throughout her life she received a steady stream of
mail about her Santa Claus letter, and to each reply
she attached an attractive printed copy of the Church
editorial. Virginia O'Hanlon Douglas died on May 13, 1971,
at the age of 81, in a nursing home in Valatie, N.Y.
