TOMORROW MORNING. By Anne Parish. Harper and Brothers, New York. $2.

THE characters of this novel are articulate; they speak in conventional phrase, but the authoress has exhibited considerable dexterity in uncovering, sometimes gently, often ironically, what they really mean and what emotions within are contending with the sham of their spoken words. It has been Miss Parish's distinct triumph that she has accomplished this largely within the speeches of of the characters themselves, and has not resorted to tedious obiter dicta. Futhermore, she has decorated their halting or dissembling utterances with the impressionistic detail that filled their minds at the time,--the flowers on the table, a wide sweep of countryside, the pattern of a garden path, the set of a face; and by taking appropriate moments to repeat or contrast these details has created a series of intimate pictures and a minor symbolism running throughout the book. At their highest, the pictures do justice to the emotional relationships of the characters.

Nevertheless, the theme is not satisfied. It treats of the emotions behind all the mannerisms; and in most cases it falls short of adequate treatment. Most of all, however, the lack of structure and background detracts from the effect. Of Westlake, during the twenty years of the heroine's life that the book covers (the second twenty), the reader learns little more than that it suffers the characters to exist within its confines. Of the progress of the story, there is never any forecast but the evident succession of the years, At scattered intervals during these years, the author drops in upon her creatures and describes, always behind the veil of colloquial speech, the effect of their crises upon their emotional natues. And at the and, one must award the palm as heroine to Kate Green by virtue of longest and most substantial portrayal at the hands of the authoress.

A reader cannot help but be carried if he take any delight at all in apt phrases applied to gestures and expressions or if his sympathy responds to the semi-tragic aspects of homely irony. As a whole, however, "Tomorrow Morning" belongs to the class of modern biographical novels, clinging helplessly to chronology for their structure and unity that try, in a strained way, to reconcile the contradictions of life. Unwilling or unable suggest philosophical standards and apparently indisposed to endorse, with a whole heart, the futility of things, they feebly press the conclusion that solace lies only in the passing of time and the drugging of memory.