From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Sep 29 2004 - 14:43:49 BST
Hi Marsha,
> You know? It's silly, but I keep waiting for a voice to say "Yes Marsha.
> There really is a Santa Claus."
In case you missed this classic:
Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus
(Originally published in The New York Sun in 1897.)
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
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 external 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 you 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 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, 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 lives forever. A thousand years
from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue
to make glad the heart of childhood.
Best,
Platt
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