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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. |   |  |   |  |   |  |   | "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."
 
 "Merry Christmas to all!  And to all, a good night."--S. Claus
 
 
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