Question On A Passage From The Fountainhead

[Elenyel]

Not sure this is the right section of the forum for this, my apologies if it isn't...

I have a question on a passage from the Fountainhead, which I'm re-reading right now. In the scene where Kent Lansing and Howard Roard meet to discuss the commission of the Aquitania Hotel (page 321, hardcover), Lansing says:

"...And yet, if I were asked to choose a symbol for humanity as we know it, I wouldn't choose a cross nor an eagle nor a lion and unicorn. I'd choose three gilded balls."

I don't understand what "three gilded balls" is supposed to be/symbolize, though I can get the general idea from the context. Can anyone explain further? Thanks!

[intellectualammo]

I don't understand what "three gilded balls" is supposed to be/symbolize, though I can get the general idea from the context. Can anyone explain further? Thanks!

Good question. I couldn't answer it at first, so I became intersested in finding the answer, and I think I have it. I found that this was actually asked and answered pretty much in this thread:

http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=1312

but I actually found more on the internet to support it, this is from...http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/tps/briefs/brief25.htm:

"The red and white striped pole signifying the barbershop, and the three gold balls outside the pawnshop are two such emblems that can occasionally be seen today. (The barber's sign survives from an era when barbers were also surgeons; the emblem suggests bloody bandages associated with the craft. The pawnbroker's sign is a sign of a sign: it derives from the coat of arms of the Medici banking family.)"

Okay. So then I wondered what "the coat of arms of the Medici banking family" was and found this:

http://www.ezcashofpanamacity.com/3ball.html

and more here, with the actual picture of the three gilded balls:

http://www.answers.com/topic/pawnbroker

So now it is time to apply it to the novel again, with all of this support for it being the symbol of a pawnshop.

Edited January 29, 2006 by intellectualammo

[B. Royce]

I interpret Lansing's comment to mean that most men sell their souls (or surrender their minds) for what appears to them to be a short-range advantage, but, like most things left in a pawn-shop, they are never reclaimed. The association with pawnshop is distinctly that of cheapness and shabbiness, of items "sold" for a small fraction of their original value, especially items that may have some personal, love-related value, displayed in a window for all eyes to see, and thus surrendering their "preciousness".