The Touchstone
佚名 \/ Anonymous
When the great library of Alexandria burned, the story goes, one book was saved. But it was not a valuable book; and so a poor man, who could read a little, bought it for a few coppers.
The book wasn’t very interesting, but between its pages there was something very interesting indeed. It was a thin strip of vellum on which was written the secret of the “Touchstone”! The touchstone was a small pebble that could turn any common metal into pure gold.
The writing explained that it was lying among thousands and thousands of other pebbles that looked exactly like it. But the secret was this: The real stone would feel warm, while ordinary pebbles are cold.
So the man sold his few belongings, bought some simple supplies, camped on the seashore, and began testing pebbles. He knew that if he picked up ordinary pebbles and threw them down again because they were cold, he might pick up the same pebble hundreds of times. So, when he felt one that was cold, he threw it into the sea. He spent a whole day doing this but none of them was the touchstone. Yet he went on and on this way. Pick up a pebble. Cold—throw it into the sea. Pick up another. Throw it into the sea. The days stretched into weeks and the weeks into months.
One day, however, about mid-afternoon, he picked up a pebble and it was warm. He threw it into the sea before he realized what he had done. He had formed such a strong habit of throwing each pebble into the sea that when the one he wanted came along, he still threw it away.
So it is with opportunity. Unless we are vigilant, it’s easy to fail to recognize an opportunity when it is in hand and it’s just as easy to throw it away.
据说，亚历山大图书馆付之一炬后，所有的书都化为灰烬，只有一本书幸免于难。这本书并不贵，有个略微读了点书的穷人，用几个铜子就买了下来。
书的内容算不上精彩，但是夹在书中的一张小纸条非常有趣——它是一条很薄的牛皮纸条，上面写着“试金石”的秘密。试金石是一种能把普通金属变成纯金的小鹅卵石。
纸条解释说，试金石与成千上万的普通鹅卵石混在一起，无法从外表辨认，秘密就是：试金石是暖的，而普通鹅卵石是冷的。
于是，这个穷人变卖了他为数不多的家当，买了些简单的生活必需