This is the unlikely title of a nineteenth century novel by the man who is said to have invented the "pillar box" -- the British mailbox.

Alice is a clever, moral, and thoughtful upper-middle class woman, the cousin of Lady Glencora Palliser who will one day become the Duchess of Omnium. Yet in the course of the novel Alice manages to get engaged twice to another cousin, George Vavasor, and twice to a country gentleman, John Grey. This would be a pretty spectacular achievement even today. At the time the book was written it was unheard of, and Alice gets to shudder each time she hears the terrible word "jilt."

For the fact of the matter is that Alice is motivated throughout the book by the very best of intentions and the purest of motives -- unlike Lady Glencora, who is tempted to leave her own husband and run off with the worthless Burgo Fitzgerald simply out of selfishness. While Glencora's ideas and desires appal her, Alice nevertheless manages to place herself in several situations which are in ther way just as outlandish as Glencora's own proposals. The author then asks if we can forgive Alice, since despite her behavior she really was doing her best ....

It's the oldest heresy of all -- that we are capable (if we are good Christians, Buddhists, Jews or whatever) of following our own ethical urges and therefore living the good life. The AA Big Book makes it clear that this is a forlorn hope. Our own thinking, no matter how moral, can never lead us to do the right thing. Instead, our way of life must be based on intution and inspiration, on moment-by-moment communion with God, on practicing these principles in all our affairs -- in short, on Steps 10, 11, and 12.