Don't tell, do show

It's been said a thousand times, so here's the one thousand and first. Or, rather, no. Instead of declaring that in any kind of creative writing, it is better to show something (an emotion, the mental state of a character, a thought) via external objects or features than to express it directly, let me consider the effect of these, diametrically opposed methods on a hypothetical reader.

My suggestion is that if an emotion (or thought, etc.) is presented indirectly, via actions or appearances, as in the following sketch:

Her eyes wandered slowly, hesitantly, from the unusually heavy lace curtains with their intricate motifs to the mug that had so often been held by those hairy and sturdy fingers with the same delicacy as when they caressed her hair.

then the reader is invited to do the math, to extract from the details what is really going on in the character's mind. But if approximately the same situation is expressed more directly:

Overcome with grief and an unsuppressible longing for her late husband, she found no consolation inside their house.

then the readers can sit back, receiving the information almost pre-digested to them. I suggest that in the first case, the readers' time is almost taken up by decoding the story, and therefore cannot but fully identify with the point of view offered by the narrator. In the second case, however, the readers have some free time on their hands to react to what is going on. They are not required to fully identify with the character presented, and can more easily pass judgement on its actions--as in Brecht's epic theatre.

None of these methods is inherently better than the other, but I think it is indispensable to consider their effects so that one could choose the one that serves the story at hand the most.