Yes, Terry, there is a Skrenta 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 Skrenta Claus! It would be as dreary as
if there were no Terrys. 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 Skrenta Claus! You might as well not believe in
faeries. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all
the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Skrenta Claus, but
even if you did not see Skrenta Claus coming down, what
would that prove? Nobody sees Skrenta Claus, but that is no
sign that there is no Skrenta Claus. The most real things in
the world are those that neither children nor men can see.
Did you ever see faeries 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, Terry, in all this world there is
nothing else real and abiding.
No Skrenta Claus?Thank Aternks he lives and lives forever. A
thousand years from now, Terry, nay 10 times 10,000
years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of
childhood.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!
-- Dogmatix (with apologies to Francis P. Church)