Anthem Page #14

Anthem is a dystopian fiction novella by Russian-American writer Ayn Rand, written in 1937 and first published in 1938 in the United Kingdom. The story takes place at an unspecified future date when mankind has entered another Dark Age.

• Science fiction

								

      from us. This is our home and the end of our journey. This is
      your house, Golden One, and ours, and it belongs to no other men
      whatever as far as the earth may stretch. We shall not share it
      with others, as we share not our joy with them, nor our love, nor
      our hunger. So be it to the end of our days.”

      “Your will be done,” they said.

      Then we went out to gather wood for the great hearth of our home.
      We brought water from the stream which runs among the trees under
      our windows. We killed a mountain goat, and we brought its flesh
      to be cooked in a strange copper pot we found in a place of
      wonders, which must have been the cooking room of the house.

      We did this work alone, for no words of ours could take the
      Golden One away from the big glass which is not glass. They stood
      before it and they looked and looked upon their own body.

      When the sun sank beyond the mountains, the Golden One fell
      asleep on the floor, amidst jewels, and bottles of crystal, and
      flowers of silk. We lifted the Golden One in our arms and we
      carried them to a bed, their head falling softly upon our
      shoulder. Then we lit a candle, and we brought paper from the
      room of the manuscripts, and we sat by the window, for we knew
      that we could not sleep tonight.

      And now we look upon the earth and sky. This spread of naked rock
      and peaks and moonlight is like a world ready to be born, a world
      that waits. It seems to us it asks a sign from us, a spark, a
      first commandment. We cannot know what word we are to give, nor
      what great deed this earth expects to witness. We know it waits.
      It seems to say it has great gifts to lay before us, but it
      wishes a greater gift for us. We are to speak. We are to give its
      goal, its highest meaning to all this glowing space of rock and
      sky.

      We look ahead, we beg our heart for guidance in answering this
      call no voice has spoken, yet we have heard. We look upon our
      hands. We see the dust of centuries, the dust which hid the great
      secrets and perhaps great evils. And yet it stirs no fear within
      our heart, but only silent reverence and pity.

      May knowledge come to us! What is the secret our heart has
      understood and yet will not reveal to us, although it seems to
      beat as if it were endeavoring to tell it?

      PART ELEVEN

      I am. I think. I will.

      My hands... My spirit... My sky... My forest... This earth of
      mine.... What must I say besides? These are the words. This is
      the answer.

      I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I
      spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the
      quest. I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning.
      I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for
      being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant
      and the sanction.

      It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty
      to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my
      ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and
      the judgement of my mind is the only searchlight that can find
      the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will
      is the only edict I must respect.

      Many words have been granted me, and some are wise, and some are
      false, but only three are holy: “I will it!”

      Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding
      star and the loadstone which point the way. They point in but one
      direction. They point to me.

      I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the
      universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know
      not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me
      on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it.
      My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is
      its own goal. It is its own purpose.

      Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish.
      I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs.
      I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on
      their altars.

      I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine
      to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before!

      I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune
      of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to
      the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my
      treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of
      these is freedom.

      I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I
      ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no
      man’s soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.

      I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of
      them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must
      do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without
      reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I
      honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned.

      I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters.
      And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love
      and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our
      hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. For in the
      temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his
      temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with
      others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold.

      For the word “We” must never be spoken, save by one’s choice and
      as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within
      man’s soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils
      on earth, the root of man’s torture by men, and of an unspeakable
      lie.

      The word “We” is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens
      to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and
      that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the
      word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which
      the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal
      the wisdom of the sages.

      What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it?
      What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is
      my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and the impotent,
      are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and
      to obey?

      But I am done with this creed of corruption.

      I am done with the monster of “We,” the word of serfdom, of
      plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame.
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