by nate on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 | Diary, Knowledge, Life

The New York Sun received a letter 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?

The letter from Virginia O’Hanlon was replied by the newspaper’s senior editor Francis P Church: Virginia, your little friends are wrong. 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 our 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.

Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginia. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.

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, or 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.

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Tags: Christmas myths, Do you believe in Santa, Santa, Santa Claus, the real Santa