From: ekman@netcom.com (Crossly the Glad-Eyed Bear)
Subject: Re: "Yes Virginia!" What does it mean?
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 92 05:29:37 GMT
Organization: Home for the Terminally Infirm

In article <1992Aug15.235127.3038@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
>In article <1992Aug14.010844.14366@pony.Ingres.COM>, bobm@Ingres.COM (Bob McQueer) writes:
>>> >I ran into the expression "Yes Virginia!" in several places and couldn't
>>> >find any explanation in dictionraies (either standard or Slang/Americansims
>>> >ones). I guess it's from an American movie.
>>  
>>  
>>> I don't normally get into these debates, but isn't this one from an
>>> extremely sappy song in the '70s (or earlier), where some guy is
>>> telling his daughter Virginia about Santa Clause the famous Christmas
>>> tree[1], and says Yes, Virginia, there really *is* a Santa Clause.
>> 
>> Actually, it comes from a famous editorial in response to a little girl
>> writing a letter to an editor asking if Santa Claus existed or not because
>> she'd been told he didn't.  The sappy (or heartwarming if you prefer)
>> editorial preceded the sappy song by decades.
>
>The New York World, in the 1890's.  Virginia had an Irish last name
>(O'Halloran, I think) and lived in the 100 block of West 95th Street
>in Manhattan, on the North side of the street (odd numbers).  I have
>the strange distinction of having lived at 150 West 95th, so I could
>see her now empty brownstone from my window.
>
>The editorial is still reprinted annually in our local newspaper, the
>Memphis Commercial-Appeal, and presumably in many others.
>
>By the way, the editorial is dreadful.

Close.  It was the New York Sun.

On September 21, 1897, the New York Sun published what was to become
the most widely read letter to a newspaper.  It was sent by 8-year-old
Virginia O'Hanlon, who lived with her parents at 115 W. 95th St.
Below is the full text of that letter and the reply written by Sun
editorial writer Francis Pharcellus Church.




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 95th St.


     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 nothing can be which is not comprehensible to 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 truth and knowledge.
     Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.  He exists as certainly as love
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 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 supernatural 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 10 times 10 thousand years from now, he will     
continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

-- 
Crossly the Glad-Eyed Bear              ekman@netcom.com
Home for the Terminally Infirm, Redwood City, California