Martha

Now it came to pass, as thou satest down to be at rest, or to do the one thing thou hadst set thyself to do, that the thing in thy pocket began to trouble thee.

For it buzzed, and was still, and buzzed again; and a light came upon the face of it in the dark; and it called unto thee with small sounds, each for a several matter: here a word from a friend, and there a tiding of the world, and there a notice that some stranger had done some thing far off, and there a summons to look, and to answer, and to come.

And thou wast careful and troubled about many things. For thou tookest it up to still the one call, and behold, there were seven; and thou answeredst the one, and in the answering came three more; and thou wast drawn out of thy rest into a great serving, running hither and thither in thy mind, cumbered about with much attending. And the hour wherein thou wouldest have done thy one thing was spent in the many, and the one thing was left undone, and thou couldest not have told, at the end of it, what the many had been.

But there is a voice that saith, softly, beneath the buzzing: Thou art careful and troubled about many things; but one thing is needful. The many will not cease to call; they are without number, and they renew themselves as fast as they are answered, and there is no end of the serving of them, neither any rest in it, nor any thanks at the last, but only the next. The one thing needful is not among them. It is the quiet thing they drew thee from — the work, or the face across the table, or the stillness itself — that maketh no sound, and sendeth thee no summons, and asketh nothing, and waiteth, and is not angry, and will be there yet when the many are forgotten as though they had never buzzed.

And she that layeth the thing aside, face down upon the table, and turneth again unto the one thing, and suffereth the many to buzz on unanswered in the dark, hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her.

It may be so. It may not.