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12 - Anthem - Ayn Rand · Science Fiction Books - Daily

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  Chapter twelve. It was when I read the first of the books I found
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  in my house that I saw the word I. And when I understood this
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  word, the book fell from my hands, and I wept, I who
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  had never known tears. I wept in deliverance and in pity for all mankind.
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  I understood the blessed thing which I had called my curse. I understood
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  why the best in me had been my sins and my transgressions, and why
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  I had never felt guilt in my sins. I understood that centuries of chains
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  and lashes will not kill the spirit of man, nor the sense of truth
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  within him. I read many books for many days. Then I called the
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  Golden One, and I told her what I had read and what I had
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  learned. She looked at me. In the first words she spoke were I
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  love you. Then I said, my dearest one, it is not proper
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  for men to be without names. There was a time when each man had
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  a name of his own to distinguish him from all other men. So let
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  us choose our names. I have read of a man who lived many thousands
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  of years ago, and of all the names in these books, his is
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  the one I wished to bear. He took the light of the gods and
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  brought it to men, and he taught men to be gods. And he
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  suffered for his deed, as all bearers of light must suffer. His name
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  was Prometheus. It shall be your name, said the Golden One. And
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  I have read of a goddess, I said, who was the mother of
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  the earth and of all the gods. Her name was Gaea. Let this
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  be your name, my Golden One, for you are to be the mother
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  of a new kind of gods. It shall be my name, said the
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  Golden One. Now I look ahead. My future is clear before me.
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  The Saint of the Pyre had seen the future when he chose me as his
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  heir, as the heir of all the saints and all the martyrs who came
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  before him, and who died for the same cause, for the same word,
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  no matter what name they gave to their cause and their truth. I
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  shall live here in my own house. I shall take my food from the
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  earth by the toil of my own hands. I shall learn many secrets from
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  my books. Through the years ahead, I shall rebuild the achievements of the
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  past and open the way to carry them further. The achievements which are open
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  to me, but close forever to my brothers, for their minds are shackled
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  to the weakest and dullest among them. I have learned that the power of
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  the sky was known to men long ago. They called it electricity. It
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  was the power that moved their greatest invention. It lit this house with light
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  that came from those globes of glass on the walls. I have found the
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  engine which produced this light. I shall learn how to repair it and how
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  to make it work again. I shall learn how to use the wires which
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  carry this power. Then I shall build a barrier of wires around my home
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  and across the paths which lead to my home, A barrier light as a
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  cobweb, more impassable than a wall of granite. A barrier my brothers will
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  never be able to cross, for they have nothing to fight me with save
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  the brute force of their numbers. I have my mind. Then, here
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  on this mountain top, with the world below me and nothing above me but
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  the sun, I shall live my own truth. Gay is pregnant with my
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  child. He will be taught to say I and to bear the pride of
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  it. He will be taught to walk straight on his own feet. He
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  will be taught reverence for his own spirit. When I shall have read all
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  the books and learned my new way, when my home will be ready and
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  my earth tilled, I shall steal one day for the last time, into
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  the cursed city of my birth. I shall call to me my friend who
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  has no name, save international four eight eight one eight, and all those
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  like him, Fraternity two five five o three, who cries without reason in
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  solidarity nine six three four seven, who calls for help in the night,
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  and a few others. I shall call to me all the men and women
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  whose spirit has not been killed within them, and who suffer under the yoke
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  of their brothers. They will follow me, and I shall lead them to
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  my fortress. And here in this uncharted wilderness, I and they, my
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  chosen friends, my fellow builders, shall write the first chapter in the new
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  history of man. These are the last things before me. And as I
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  stand here at the door of glory, I look behind me for the last
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  time. I look upon the history of men which I have learned from the
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  books, and I wonder it was a long story, and the spirit which
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  moved it was the spirit of man's freedom. But what is freedom freedom from
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  what There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other
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  men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers.
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  That is freedom, that and nothing else. At first man was enslaved by
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  the gods, but he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the
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  kings, but he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth,
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  by his kin, by his race, but he broke their chains. He
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  declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither God, nor
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  king, nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their
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  number. For his is the right of man. And there is no right
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  on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of freedom,
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  for which the blood of the sentries behind him had spilled. But then he
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  gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his savage beginning.
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  What brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away from men?
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  What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of
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  the word We. When men accepted that worship, the structure of centuries collapsed
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  about them, the structure whose every beam had come from the thought of some
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  one man, each in his day down the ages from the depths of some
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  one's spirit, such as spirit existed, but for its own sake. Those
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  men who survived, those eager to obey, eager to live for one another.
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  Since they had nothing else to vindicate them, those men could neither carry
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  on nor preserve what they had received. Thus did all thought, all science,
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  all wisdom perish on earth. Thus did men, men with nothing to
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  save their great numbers, lose the steel towers, the flying ships, the
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  power wires, all the things that had not created and could never keep.
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  Perhaps later some men had been born with the mind and the courage to recover
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  these things which were lost. Perhaps these men came before the counselor of scholars.
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  They answered as I had been answered, and for the same reasons.
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  But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years of transition
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  long ago, that men did not see whither they were going, and went
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  on in blindness and cowardice to their fate. I wonder, for it is
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  hard for me to conceive how men who knew the word I could give it
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  up and not know what they had lost. But such has been the story.
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  For I have lived in this city of the damned, And I know
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  what horror men permitted to be brought upon them. Perhaps in those days there
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  were few among men, a few of clear sight and clean soul, who
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  refused to surrender that word. What agony must have been theirs before that which
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  they saw coming and could not stop. Perhaps they cried out in protest and
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  in warning, But men paid no heed to their warning. And they,
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  those few, fought a hopeless battle, and they perished, with their banners
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  smeared by their own blood. And they chose to perish, for they knew
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  to them. I send my salute across the centuries, and my pity theirs
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  is the banner in my hand. And I wish I had the power to
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  tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to be final. The
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  night was not without hope. For the battle they lost can never be lost.
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  For that which they died to save can never perish. Through all the
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  darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of
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  man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will
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  awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through, and man
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  will go on man not men. Here on this mountain, I and my
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  sons and my chosen friends shall build our new land and our fort, and
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  it will become as the heart of the earth, lost and hidden at first,
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  but beating, beating louder each day, and word of it will reach
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  every corner of the earth, and the roads of the world will become as
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  veins which will carry the best of the world's blood to my threshold. And
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  all my brothers and the councils of my brothers will hear of it, but
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  they will be impotent against me. And the day will come when I shall
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  break the chains of the earth and raise the cities of the enslaved, and
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  my home will become the capital of a world where each man will be free
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  to exist for his own sake. For the coming of that day, I
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  shall fight, I and my sons and my chosen friends for the freedom of
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  man, for his rights, for his life, for his honor. And
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  here over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the
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  Word which is to be my beacon and my banner, the word which will
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  not die should we all perish in battle, The word which can never die
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  on this earth, for it is the heart of it, and the meaning
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  and the glory the sacred word Ego, end Chapter twelve, End of Anthem
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  by an Ran