The Touchstone 试金石的故事

The Touchstone
试金石的故事

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.
故事从亚历山大图书馆被付诸一炬开始。有一本书在大火中幸存了下来，但这不是一本贵重的书，一个文化程度并不高的穷人用几块铜板把书买了下来。

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"!
书的内容算不上精彩，但书中夹了一张小纸条，上面的内容还是挺吸引人的——关于试金石的小秘密！

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.
试金石是一种能把普通金属变成纯金的小鹅卵石。书中写道，试金石通常与普通的鹅卵石混在一起，从外表看很难区分出来，但秘诀是当握在手里，试金石是暖的，而普通鹅卵石则是冷的。

So the man sold his few belongings, bought some simple supplies, camped on the seashore, and began testing pebbles.
这个穷人变卖了他为数不多的家产，购买了一些基本的生活必需品，在海边安营扎寨，开始寻找试金石。

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. – Cold. – Throw it into the sea.The days stretched into weeks and the weeks into months. 
他知道，如果自己把拾到的普通鹅卵石又放回原地，那他可能会无数次拣起同一块石头。于是，一旦捡到冷的鹅卵石，他就把它扔进大海里。就这样，他捡了整整一天的石头，也没碰到一块试金石。但他不气馁，依然执著的重复着这套机械的动作——拣起一块鹅卵石，摸到是冷的，扔进大海里,捡起另一块，仍是冷的，扔进大海……日复一日，很快几周过去了，然后几个月也过去了。

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.
然而有一天，大概下午两三点的时候，他捡起了一块暖的鹅卵石，但他习惯性地用力把它抛进了大海，等意识到扔出去的是一块试金石时，已经为时过晚。他已经习惯了顺手把拣起来的每一块鹅卵石扔进大海，甚至当试金石出现时，也不例外。

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.
机会也是如此。如果我们不时刻保持警惕，那么有一天，我们也会很自然地任由手中的大好机会白白溜走。

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