'Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be'

Please excuse my manners as I empty a bag of letters on your doorstep and flee

Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) a…