"Come, devil; for to thee is this world given."

Why does evil exist, and why does a man embrace it? What madness drives him to fall? Those questions are the most striking and also the most eloquently captured in the work of Hawthorne. Goodman Brown, aptly named in a style evocative of "Pilgrim's Progress," declares in the middle of his symbolic journey: "With heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against devil!" Four paragraphs later, consumed in his despair he cries out the opposite: "There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil; for to thee is this world given." I have never come across a better phrase capturing the essential corruptibity of the human nature. Out of misery, despair and unbearable pain, spawns out a demon from the darkened heart; a man becomes a devil himself to confront his own madness. Faith is hard to keep, and it can vanish out of trace at such a snap of instant for no apparent, ready reason for a man to grasp. "Pilgrim's Progress" was a brilliant account of moral journey of a man. "Young Goodman Brown" is somewhat less idealistic and willing to confront the darker side of the reality. Personally, I'm pleased by the both English classics. But it was not a classic--but a pop-culture--that was the first to show me that it is possible for a benighted soul to find hope in his life. It's a luxuary of living in the 21st century to have such choices.