A rhetorical piece, a measured portion of the world, a speech recited to an imaginary listener – there is magic in texts limited to just a few thousand words, in which the authors express their opinions on a given subject. Decades before the advent of TED talks and first-person documentaries, countless writers, including great writers, engaged in the art of writing the short essay. Such is this collection. It brings together seven works that seek to communicate with each other in an immediate way: Robert Louis Stevenson deciphers the essence of love and the obstacles to marriage. Walter Benjamin writes sketches about the wanderer and idleness, and Garnet Cadogan translates them into Walking in the Shadow of Racism. Virginia Woolf searches for a pencil throughout London. Henry David Thoreau finds his freedom in nature, while Guy de Maupassant, fed up with capitalist Paris, sails to Venice, listening to the distant music of a city and gazing intoxicatingly at the stars at night. "To Love, to Wander, to Sail" is a kind of unstable mental path that may lead us to a certain, but undefined, point: to a kaleidoscopic and modest journey into the depths of the thinking of beloved writers, and in fresh and thought-provoking texts. The very tasting of them, and the transition from one to the next, creates a kind of moving story that is fun to read, but difficult to recreate. "No sensible person would approach marriage without great apprehension. I, he will think, who have hitherto conducted my life so carelessly, am now about to bear the responsibility for the life of another creature. Henceforth there will be two to bear my failures..." Robert Louis Stevenson, Marriage "A sensual intoxication seizes one who walks aimlessly for a long time through the streets. The power of the walk increases with every step; the temptations of the shops, the bistros, the smiling women diminish..." Walter Benjamin, Wandering "No one may ever have felt a desire for a lead pencil. But there are circumstances when a strong desire to take hold of one arises; moments when we are determined to achieve something, a good excuse for walking across London between tea and dinner." Virginia Woolf, Street Haunting: A London Adventure "A stimulating and thought-provoking reading experience that brings depth to everyday actions and struggles" Or Pitousi, history student