It is the character of such revolutions that we always see the worst of them at first.  Till men have been some time free, they know not how to use their freedom.  The natives of wine countries are generally sober.  In climates where wine is a rarity intemperance abounds.  A newly liberated people may be compared to a northern army encamped on the Rhine or the Xeres.  It is said that, when soldiers in such a situation first find themselves able to indulge without restraint in such a rare and expensive luxury, nothing is to be seen but intoxication.  Soon, however, plenty teaches discretion; and, after wine has been for a few months their daily fare, they become more temperate than they had ever been in their own country.  In the same manner, the final and permanent fruits of liberty are wisdom, moderation, and mercy.  Its immediate effects are often atrocious crimes, conflicting errors, scepticism on points the most clear, dogmatism on points the most mysterious.  It is just at this crisis that its enemies love to exhibit it.  They pull down the scaffolding from the half-finished edifice.  They point to the flying dust, the falling bricks, the comfortless rooms, the frightful irregularity of the whole appearance; and then ask in scorn where the promised splendour and comfort is to be found.  If such miserable sophisms were to prevail, there would never be a good house or a good government in the world.

Ariosto tells a pretty story of a fairy, who, by some mysterious law of her nature, was condemned to appear at certain seasons in the form of a foul and poisonous snake.  Those who injured her during the period of her disguise were for ever excluded from participation in the blessings which she bestowed.  But to those who, in spite of her loathsome aspect, pitied and protected her, she afterwards revealed herself in the beautiful and celestial form which was natural to her, accompanied their steps, granted all their wishes, filled their houses with wealth, made them happy in love and victorious in war.  Such a spirit is Liberty.  At times she takes the form of a hateful reptile.  She grovels, she hisses, she stings.  But woe to those who in disgust shall venture to crush her!  And happy are those who, having dared to receive her in her degraded and frightful shape, shall at length be rewarded by her in the time of her beauty and her glory!

There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces; and that cure is freedom.  When a prisoner first leaves his cell he cannot bear the light of day:  he is unable to discriminate colours, or recognise faces.  But the remedy is, not to remand him into his dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays of the sun.  The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nations which have become half blind in the house of bondage.  But let them gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it.  In a few years men learn to reason.  The extreme violence of opinion subsides.  Hostile theories correct each other.  The scattered elements of truth cease to contend, and begin to coalesce.  And at length a system of justice and order is educed out of the chaos.