The Model Millionaire Quotes

Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed. The poor should be practical and prosaic […]. These are the great truths of modern life which Hughie Erskine never realised.

He had gone on the Stock Exchange for six months; but what was a butterfly to do among bulls and bears?

Trevor was a painter. Indeed, few people escape that nowadays. But he was also an artist, and artists are rather rare.

“Poor old chap!” said Hughie, “how miserable he looks! But I suppose, to you painters, his face is his fortune?”

“Certainly,” replied Trevor, “you don’t want a beggar to look happy, do you?”

“It’s all very well, Hughie, for you to talk, but I assure you that there are moments when Art almost attains to the dignity of manual labour […].”

“Poor old fellow,” he thought to himself, “he wants it more than I do, but it means no hansoms for a fortnight”; and he walked across the studio and slipped the sovereign into the beggar’s hand.

“An artist’s heart is his head,” replied Trevor; “and besides, our business is to realise the world as we see it, not to reform it as we know it. A chacun son métier”

“The old man you saw to-day in the studio was Baron Hausberg. He is a great friend of mine, buys all my pictures and that sort of thing, and gave me a commission a month ago to paint him as a beggar. Que voulez-vous? La fantaisie d’un millionnaire!”

“I suppose he has come for an apology,” said Hughie to himself; and he told the servant to show the visitor up.

“Millionaire models,” remarked Alan, “are rare enough; but, by Jove, model millionaires are rarer still!”