Yes, Virginia, you must believe

DEAR “Single in the City”: I am 28 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Mr. Right. Papa says, “If you see it in ‘Single in the City,’ it is probably at least partly true.” Please tell me the truth. Is there a Mr. Right?

-- Virginia O’Spinster

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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 that is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. But especially men’s.

In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared to the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge. That is why men are so easy to catch and to marry.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Mr. Right, for each and every young girl out there. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, as surely as there are mothers with gleams in their eyes and fathers with checkbooks. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Mr. Right. 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 career, travel, friends, pets, shopping, dry vodka martinis and endless nights on the town. The external searchlight with which desperate womanhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Mr. Right? You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire private investigators to perform background checks on all the gentlemen you date, watching in all the bars to catch them doing something wrong, but even if not one of your gentlemen friends behaved like Mr. Right, what would that prove? Nobody sees Mr. Right, but that is no sign that there is no Mr. Right.

The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see -- like an excellent plastic surgery job. 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 this world. You tear apart a Tiffany’s box to see if there is a diamond ring 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 who ever lived, could tear apart. Especially if they sit around watching TV and drinking beer all day.

Only faith, poetry, love, romance can push aside that curtain 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 Mr. Right? 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 womanhood.

Keep dreaming of a White Knight Christmas, Virginia, with silver wedding bells ringing ding dong ding. And tell your little friends to cork it.

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Samantha Bonar can be reached at samantha.bonar@latimes.com.