The Many Splendored Thing — James F. Babcock

Love…Some give it, some have it, some lose it, all want it. Among the young and old, past and present, foreign and familiar, the emotion appears with many facets—curiosity, longing, hope, sentiment, playfulness, excitement, bliss, elation, obscenity, guile, suspicion, jealously, cruelty, sadness, loss. So various are the moods of love that it is impossible to deal with all of them in a single novel. Thus the short story is chosen here as the vehicle to cover the waterfront, so to speak, as we set sail for the stormy waters of lust, romance, and love, an amusing voyage best made without equivocation or euphemism. You may laugh at most of these stories and perhaps shed a tear at others, but with all of them you will nod in recognition of what you know to be true about the many-splendored thing.