The next three years were filled with manifold activities. As a student Heine was deeply impressed by the absolute philosophy expounded by Hegel; as a Jew he lent a willing hand to the endeavors of an association recently founded for the amelioration of the social and political condition of the Hebrews; in the drawing room of Rahel Levin, now the wife of Varnhagen von Ense, he came in touch with gifted men and women who were ardent admirers of Goethe, and some of whom, a quarter of a century before, had befriended Friedrich Schlegel; and in the subterranean restaurant of Lutter and Wegener he joined in the revels of Hoffmann, Grabbe, and other eccentric geniuses. Heine now began to be known as a man of letters. After having, from 1817 on, printed occasional poems in newspapers and magazines, he published in December, 1821 (with the date 1822), his first volume, entitled simply _Poems_; he wrote newspaper articles on Berlin and on Poland, which he visited in the summer of 1822; and in the spring of 1823 he published _Tragedies together with a Lyrical Intermezzo_--two very romantic and undramatic plays in verse, separated in the volume by a short series of lyrical poems. Meanwhile Amalie Heine had been married and Harry's parents had moved to Lüneburg. Regret for the loss of Amalie soon gave way to a new passion for a very young girl, whose identity remains uncertain, but who was probably Amalie's little sister Therese. In any case, Heine met the new love on the occasion of a visit to Lüneburg and Hamburg in the spring of 1823, and was haunted by her image during the summer spent at Cuxhaven. Here Heine first saw the sea. In less exalted moods he dallied with fisher maidens; he did not forget Amalie; but the youthful grace and purity of Therese dominate most of the poems of this summer. The return from the watering place gave Heine the title _The Return Home_ for this collection of pieces which, when published in 1826, was dedicated to Frau Varnhagen von Ense. Uncle Salomon, to whom the _Tragedies_ had been affectionately inscribed, was not displeased with the growing literary reputation of his nephew. But he saw no sense in the idea that Heine already entertained of settling in Paris. He insisted that the young man should complete his studies; and so, in January, 1824, Heine once more betook himself to Göttingen, where on the twenty-first of July, 1825, he was duly promoted _Doctor utriusque Juris_. In the summer of 1824 he made the trip through the Hartz mountains which served as the basis of _The Journey to the Hartz_; immediately before his promotion he submitted to baptism in the Lutheran church as Christian Johann Heinrich Heine.