The Touchstone

New Roman" size=3>When the great library of Alexandria burned down,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 for a few coppers.

The book was not very interesting,but between its papers 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 was this:The real stone would feel warm,while ordinary pebbles are cold.So the sold his few belongings,bought some simple supplies,campled on the seashore,and began testing pebbles.

He knew that of he picked up ordinare pebbles and threw them down again because they were cold,he might pick up the same pebble hundreads 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 intn 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.