Quote:
Originally Posted by Anais9000
I still see the inversion as senseless, out of character, and crucially, not commented upon in the response -- ie, an obvious error. You're free, as a publisher, to correct or not to correct, as you choose. You're also free (which I gather is what you DO do) to publish these works without bothering to read them, so as to form an opinion about their textual correctness prior to publishing them. You'll pardon me if I choose actually to read them, and to advance each publication as my best understanding of the intent of the author.
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Some supporting material for the PG version:
‘It was Jones [a friend of Butler’s] who made the humorous misquotation from Tennyson: "It is better to have loved and lost than
never to have lost at all" which Butler used… ‘
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler
[Lee Elbert Holt, ‘The Note-Books of Samuel Butler’ PMLA, (Proceedings of the Modern Language Association of America) Vol. 60, No. 4 (Dec., 1945)]
‘In morals the work of destruction generally begins by affirming the opposite of the accepted rule. An excellent source book for this attitude is Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh, written in 1885 but not published until 1903. The Victorian Tennyson had said: “'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Butler said: “'Tis better to have loved and lost
than never to have lost at all.” This inversion of values—don't weep over loss; there are plenty of loves to be had and the more the merrier—is but an indication of method.’
(Encyclopaedia Britanica’s ‘Guide to Shakespeare’. Available at:
http://www.britannica.com/shakespeare/article-58467 )
‘Dry as ever, Overton muses: "Is it not Tennyson who has said: 'Tis better to have loved and lost,
than never to have lost at all'?"’
(Susan Haack, ‘The Ideal of Intellectual Integrity,in Life and Literature’, New Literary History 36.3 (2005) 359-373, p. 362.)
Thus Butler could say something important and truthful by the inversion, "It's better to have loved and lost
than never to have lost at all," a trick which he called “quoting from memory”.
(Jacques Barzun, ‘Classic, Romantic and Modern’ University of Chicago, 1975. p.223)
‘The essence of earth life is not only limitation but loss. We must learn to forego. Our lives of course are filled with the experience of loss, disappointments, sacrifice of hopes. But now know that on the higher plane we shall find again those we have loved and lost. The loss is all a training of the soul. Do you remember Samuel Butler's delightful
mis-quotation - "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all"!’(Sir George Trevelyan, ‘Retirement and Old Age: A Wrekin Trust Lecture’
Available at:
http://www.sirgeorgetrevelyan.org.uk...etirement.html)
A Google search on
Butler "loved and lost than never to have lost at all"
throws up 1290 hits attributing this version to Butler, including one from the
Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=But...n&start=0&sa=N