The direct allusions to Sterne and his works are numerous. A list of Sterne characters which were indelibly impressed upon his mind is found near the very beginning (pp. 3–4); other allusions are to M. Dessein (p. 65), La Fleur’s “Courierstiefel” (p. 115), the words of the dying Yorick (p. 128), the pococurantism of Mrs. Shandy (p. 187), the division of travelers into types (p. 141), Uncle Toby (p. 200), Yorick’s violin-playing (p. 274), the foolish fat scullion (p. 290), Yorick’s description of a maid’s (p. 188) eyes, “als ob sie zwischen vier Wänden einem Garaus machen könnten.”
The second volume is even more incoherent in narration, and contains less genuine occurrence and more ill-considered attempts at whimsicality, yet throughout this volume there are indications that the author is awakening to the vulnerability of his position, and this is in no other particular more easily discernible than in the half-hearted defiance of the critics and his anticipation of their censure. The change, so extraordinary in the third volume, is foreshadowed in the second. Purely sentimental, effusive, and abundantly teary is the story of the rescued baker’s wife. In this excess of sentiment, Schummel shows his intellectual appreciation of Sterne’s individual treatment of the humane and pathetic, for near the end of the poor woman’s narrative the author seems to recollect a fundamental sentence of Sterne’s creed, the inevitable admixture of the whimsical, and here he introduces into the sentimental relation a Shandean idiosyncrasy: from page 43 the narrative leaps back to the beginning of the volume, and Schummel advises the reader to turn back and re-read, referring incidentally to his confused fashion of narration. The awkwardness with which this is done proves Schummel’s inability to follow Yorick, though its use shows his appreciation of Sterne’s peculiar genius. The visit of the author, the baker’s wife and her daughter (the former lady’s maid) to the graveyard is Yorickian in flavor, and the plucking of nettles from the grave of the dead epileptic is a direct borrowing. Attempts to be immorally, sensuously suggestive in the manner of Sterne are found in the so-called chapter on “Button-holes,” here cast in a more Shandean vein, and in the adventure “die ängstliche Nacht,”—in the latter case resembling more the less frank, more insinuating method of the Sentimental Journey. The sentimental attitude toward man’s dumb companions is imitated in his adventure with the house-dog; the author fears the barking of this animal may disturb the sleep of the poor baker’s wife: he beats the dog into silence, then grows remorseful and wishes “that I had given him no blow,” or that the dog might at least give him back the blows. His thought that the dog might be pretending its pain, he designates a subtle subterfuge of his troubled conscience, and Goethe, in the review mentioned above, exclaims, “A fine pendant to Yorick’s scene with the Monk.”
Distinctly Shandean are the numerous digressions, as on imitation (p. 16), on authors and fairs (p. 45), that which he calls (pp. 226–238) “ein ganz originelles Gemische von Wiz, Belesenheit, Scharfsinn, gesunder Philosophie, Erfahrung, Algebra und Mechanik,” or (p. 253) “Von der Entstehungsart eines Buches nach Erfindung der Buchdrukerkunst,” which in reference to Sterne’s phrase, is called a “jungfräuliche Materie.” He promises (pp. 75 and 108), like Sterne, to write numerous chapters on extraordinary subjects,—indeed, he announces his intention of supplementing the missing sections of Shandy on “Button-holes” and on the “Right and Left (sic) end of a Woman.” His own promised effusions are to be “Ueber die roten und schwarzen Röcke,”, “über die Verbindung der Theologie mit Schwarz,” “Europäischenfrauenzimmerschuhabsätze,”
half a one “Ueber die Schuhsohlen” and “Ueber meinen Namen.”
His additions to Shandy are flat and witless, that on the “Right and Wrong End of a Woman” (pp. 88 ff.) degenerating into three brief narratives displaying woman’s susceptibility to flattery, the whole idea probably adapted from Sterne’s chapter, “An Act of Charity;” the chapter on “Button-holes” is made a part of the general narrative of his relation to his “Naïve.” Weakly whimsical is his seeking pardon for the discourse with which the Frenchman (pp. 62–66), under the pretext that it belonged somewhere else and had inadvertently crept in. Shandean also is the black margin to pages 199–206, the line upside down (p. 175), the twelve irregularly printed lines (p. 331), inserted to indicate his efforts in writing with a burned hand, the lines of dashes and exclamation points, the mathematical, financial calculation of the worth of his book from various points of view, and the description of the maiden’s walk (p. 291). Sterne’s mock-scientific method, as already noted, is observable again in the statement of the position of the dagger “at an angle of 30°” (p. 248). His coining of new words, for which he is censured by the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, is also a legacy of Yorick’s method.
The third volume bears little relation to Sterne aside from its title, and one can only wonder, in view of the criticism of the two parts already published and the nature of the author’s own partial revulsion of feeling, that he did not give up publishing it altogether, or choose another title, and sunder the work entirely from the foregoing volumes, with which it has in fact so contradictory a connection. It may be that his relations to the publisher demanded the issuing of the third part under the same title.
This volume is easily divisible into several distinct parts, which are linked with one another, and to the preceding narrative, only by a conventional thread of introduction. These comprise: the story of Caroline and Rosenfeld, a typical eighteenth century tale of love, seduction and flight; the hosts’ ballad, “Es war einmahl ein Edelmann;” the play, “Die unschuldige Ehebrecherin” and “Mein Tagebuch,” the journal of an honest preacher, and a further sincere exploitation of Schummel’s ideas upon the clergyman’s office, his ideal of simplicity, kindliness, and humanity. In the latter part of the book Schummel resumes his original narrative, and indulges once more in the luxury of sentimental adventure, but without the former abortive attempts at imitating Sterne’s peculiarities of diction. This last resumption of the sentimental creed introduces to us one event evidently inspired by Yorick: he meets a poor, maimed soldier-beggar. Since misfortune has deprived the narrator himself of his possessions, he can give nothing and goes a begging for the beggar’s sake, introducing the new and highly sentimental idea of “vicarious begging” (pp. 268–9). In the following episode, a visit to a child-murderess, Schummel leaves a page entirely blank as an appropriate proof of incapacity to express his emotions attendant on the execution of the unfortunate. Sterne also left a page blank for the description of the Widow Wadman’s charms.
At the very end of the book Schummel drops his narrative altogether and discourses upon his own work. It would be difficult to find in any literature so complete a condemnation of one’s own serious and extensive endeavor, so candid a criticism of one’s own work, so frank an acknowledgment of the pettiness of one’s achievement. He says his work, as an imitation of Sterne’s two novels, has “few or absolutely no beauties of the original, and many faults of its own.” He states that his enthusiasm for Tristram has been somewhat dampened by Sonnenfels and Riedel; he sees now faults which should not have been imitated; the frivolous attitude of the narrator toward his father and mother is deprecated, and the suggestion is given that this feature was derived from Tristram’s own frankness concerning the eccentricities and incapacities of his parents. He begs reference to a passage in the second volume[14] where the author alludes with warmth of appreciation to his real father and mother; that is, genuine regard overcame the temporary blindness, real affection arose and thrust out the transitory inclination to an alien whimsicality.
Schummel admits that he has utterly failed in his effort to characterize the German people in the way Sterne treated the English and French; he confesses that the ninety-page autobiography which precedes the journey itself was intended to be Tristram-like, but openly stigmatizes his own failure as “ill conceived, incoherent and not very well told!” After mentioning some few incidents and passages in this first section which he regards as passable, he boldly condemns the rest as “almost beneath all criticism,” and the same words are used with reference to much that follows, in which he confesses to imitation, bad taste and intolerable indelicacy. He calls his pathetic attempts at whimsical mannerisms (Heideldum, etc.), “kläglich, überaus kläglich,” expresses the opinion that one would not be surprised at the reader who would throw away the whole book at such a passage. The words of the preacher in the two sections where he is allowed to air his opinions still meet with his approval, and the same is true of one or two other sections. In conclusion, he states that the first part contains hardly one hundred good pages, and that the second part is worse than the first, so that he is unwilling to look at it again and seek out its faults. The absence of allusions to Sterne’s writings is marked, except in the critical section at the end, he mentions Sterne but once (p. 239), where he calls him “schnurrigt.” This alteration of feeling must have taken place in a brief space of time, for the third volume is signed April 25, 1772. It is not easy to establish with probability the works of Sonnenfels and Riedel which are credited with a share in this revulsion of feeling.
In all of this Schummel is a discriminating critic of his own work; he is also discerning in his assertion that the narrative contained in his volume is conceived more in the vein of Fielding and Richardson. The Sterne elements are rather embroidered on to the other fabric, or, as he himself says, using another figure, “only fried in Shandy fat.”[15]