Whispering, hear the ghost in the moonlight

Logan Pearsall Smith once said "What I like in an author is not what he says, but what he whispers. 

Mr. Smith makes a valid point. What is writing if the reader does not have to dig deeper into the story to find the underlying meaning? If the reader does not leave the story thinking about what they have just read, then the author has not done his or her job. 

People write for a reason. The author may tell a story or blatantly say his point, but it makes the piece so much more interesting if the author hides the facts and creatively presents his or her points. Take the short story, Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorn, for example. Hawthorn tells an intriguing story, but "whispers" the fear of evil and internal lives of real people. He ends his story ambiguously, making the reader figure out his lessons and points of why he wrote this masterpiece. 

I completely agree with Smith in this manner, finding that I enjoy the challenge of discovering the "whispers" and knowing that a new one will pop up each time a piece is read. While I have read stories where the author just "says," they do not stick in my mind as well as one that secretly possesses a lesson in between its lines.