It was only possible in the Victorian period for the wealthy elite. If you were born into a family that owned vast swaths of land or used to run slave plantations in the Caribbean you were set for life and could devote your life to less crude pursuits than the gain of capital. You would also have a ready built network of others with similar wealth and social expectations.
And not only in England - all of Europe's elite, in France, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Russia, spend their days sponsoring art and partying, basically. They were the ones paying all the famous composers, painters, etc. whose work we still marvel at today.
The rise of the United States and its capitalist system brought an end to that. The businessman rose over the noble man, both in wealth as well as image.
Not the businessman, really; the _normal_ man. If we were back in the Victorian age, it's likely that you and I would be doomed to labor every day for meager sustenance, supporting the occasional noble and their leisure.
