Letters Written During a Trip to Southern India and Ceylon in the Winter of 1876-1877 (1877)

This book is in two parts, and was designed primarily for religious thinkers. The first part is philosophical verse, entitled The Moral Genesis. This has two meanings, referring on the one hand to the nature of right and wrong, and on the other hand to why God (if He exists) could be justified in creating a universe where suffering is inevitable. Its purpose was to argue out certain ideas for consideration. It is a form of poetry that might be called the poetry of ideas as distinct from traditional descriptive or narrative verse, because it explores problems and sets out conjectures. Inevitably it will be controversial. It is in verse because, the author says, he finds that a natural way to think! The second part of the book consists of individual poems, and one or two short pieces in prose, about Jewish history, Israel, etc.