If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again, - if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk. Walking is an essay by American writer, naturalist and philosopher David Thoreau (1817 - 1862). Thoreau's work has made a lasting contribution to modern environmental practice, and also influenced the non-violent resistance practiced by great civilians such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.