But as languages become rich and furnish words for communicating every idea, action must naturally cease. Men will not give themselves the pain of exerting their limbs and body to make themselves understood, when a bare opening of their lips will answer the purpose. This may be assigned as one principal cause of the decline of eloquence in modern ages, particularly among the English. To the same cause, in part, may we ascribe the difference in the French and English manner of speaking. It is a common observation, that the French use more action and are more animated in conversation, than the English. The cause usually assigned, is, the natural vivacity of the French nation; which appears to me not satisfactory; for the Germans, who resemble the French, in some degree, in their manner of speaking, are nevertheless a more grave people than the English. I suspect that the difference may in part be thus accounted for. The French, tho by no means a barren language, wants words to express many ideas, for which the English is provided. For example, the English has two forms for the future tense of verbs; _shall_ and _will_; each of which has a distinct meaning. _Shall_ expresses event in the first person, and promise, command or threatning in the second and third. _Will_, in the first person, promises; in the second and third, foretells. The French has no such distinction. The phrase _je lui payerai_, the only form of the future, cannot convey such distinct meanings, as _promise_ and _event_, unless accompanied with some expressive tone or gesture. A Frenchman therefore, to express the force of the English, _I will pay_, must supply the want of a distinct word by action, or have recourse to a circumlocution. The same remark holds with respect to _would_ and _should_, which, in a variety of combinations, retain distinct significations. The French has properly but one word, _plume_, for the three English words, _feather, en_ and _quill_. Its verbs have not such a variety of combinations to express the precise time of an action as the English. _J'ecris_ is the only phrase for the English, _I write_ and _I am writing_, which have distinct uses; and I do not know whether there is any phrase used in French which will exactly correspond with the English phrases answering to the inceptive verb of the Romans, _I am going to write_, or, _am about writing_.[30]