It should first be remarked that unless Neptune is well into the second house or has some planet rising before it, it may act upon the character very much as if it were actually in the Ascendant. If this however be not the case, its full influence may be expected upon affairs connected with money and possessions. By this, one should not understand so much vested interest, inherited properly, or even the whole fortune, however this may be derived, but rather those things which are immediately available at anyone time, and more particularly the earnings of labour, if the native is engaged in such. The effect of Neptune in these matters is very singular; money is itself a somewhat mystic and elusive commodity. It has the unusual property that a large sum is in many ways much less than a small sum. Any schemer will tell you that it is much easier to get five thousand dollars than five. This is one of the reasons why there must always be extremes of wealth and poverty. The whimsicality of Neptune harmonises very well, therefore, with the nature of the second house, and taking one thing with another, the native is not likely to find himself in any great poverty. If his bank account in terms of actual cash, appears small, this need not imply distress. He may have a sort of Bohemian easiness about the matter. He is likely to regard money as a very fluid article, coming and going without apparent reason. It is likely to come when he least expects it, and to flyaway from him when his grip is most tightly clasped upon it. There will always, too, be something abnormal about the nature of the means by which money is procured. Straightforward, honest effort is not usually on the programme. If you offer to such a person a simple, honest, certain means of making money in large quantities, he will throw down your proposition. He will want to improve upon it by the introduction of some fantastic comedy of duplicity, which will sound very well and completely ruin the scheme. The idea of a square deal is somehow offensive, and such people are therefore usually in financial low water. It has been said of one of them that he would spend a thousand dollars in the hope of cheating someone out of thirty cents.
People with this characteristic are, of course, extremely suspicious that someone may be trying upon them the game they would try on others, and they will deprive themselves of a thousand dearly longed-for pleasures to avoid the suspicion that someone has got a box of cigarettes out of them. It must be thoroughly understood that these characteristics are not at all dishonest in the proper sense of the word. By dishonest one means a person who, knowing clearly what is right, does deliberately what is wrong, and there is no trace of crime in the Neptunian temperament. It is pure wanton perversity. The general instability of the financial position will proably work out in many curious ways. Money will often come in through perfectly legitimate channels, but in every case, there is a probability of loss. In some way, quite beyond the control of the native, who may use all sorts of precautions, perhaps thrift, pushed to a perfectly absurd extreme, then suddenly a fantastic impulse will arise, and cause the whole amount to be lost in a manner which a grain of common sense, not so large as the proverbial mustard-seed, would have prevented. There is, of course, also a strong tendency to gamble. Unless the fifth house be very strong and fortunate, disaster is to be expected. In some case where the rest of the horoscope is well balanced, particularly with regard to the moral character, the influence of Neptune may be more controlled and legitimatized. This will especially be the case, if he have some favourable aspect. The income may then be derived from operations of a Neptunian character. The native may profit through the stage or through such business as the sale of pictures, especially ‘old masters’ painted in Philadelphia, the dealing in antiquities, the establishment of ‘bucket shops’ and in general all those affairs in which values are dependent principally upon the caprice, and those which make their profit from human vanity and love of Sham. Beauty parlours and quack medicine businesses might very likely be associated with Neptune in the second house. With regard to his personal chattels, the Neptunian may be very unfortunate; they are likely to be lost and mislaid in somewhat inexplicable ways. His own carelessness in this regard will accentuate the effect. In conclusion, the native must always be on his guard against fraud and deception in regard to financial affairs. He is particularly likely to lose money through trickery and chicanery in such things as the wording of the agreement. It will also be well for him not to undervalue trifles; the smallest incidents where Neptune is concerned often lead to the greatest results.