Yachting?
By all means. It gives judgment, coolness, and readiness to face and overcome danger, muscle, ozone, handiness of hands, steadiness of eye, experience, and a sense of the depth and expanse of the ocean. By all means, yachting, but not for the purpose of show, as giving orders before other people, of taking dilatory trips in fair weather only, and lounging in an easy-chair on the deck of some yacht while others take the responsibility and do the work. While going to the expense of keeping a boat, you should so mould your life as to use it constantly. If you keep a boat on the off chance of wanting it every other week or just for the sense of having it ready, you will make it an annoyance to yourself rather than a pleasure. But here caution is recommended; and you should only keep a yacht if you can do so well within your means, and thoroughly understanding that some day you may have to give it up, and that you must not think that a hardship.
Clothes?
Yes, but within bounds. You can always afford to pay more for clothes than they are worth, and pay more attention to them also than they are worth; but here again temperance is recommended.
Horses?
Yes; that is, enough to learn to ride, to master your horse, develop your muscle and abandon and poise, but not enough to watch jockeys carrying your colors or your coachman before you carrying your reins. Learn to ride, learn to drive; but that does not mean necessarily that you had better bring a pony back with you.
Theatres?
Use theatres sparingly. They are perfect gluttons for time, and use up money. But of these the more important is time, and they make desperate inroads into the next day. So be temperate in theatres. Put part in for education and part for the discard.
Books?
By all means. Spare no money on them. Be a spendthrift for books. We can always afford them; but pay for the printed matter, and not for the covers. If you choose books wisely and know what is in them and where to get at them when you want them, you can for a very small expense have a mine of information and recreation at your elbow, which could make you the best educated of men.