Laura, the heroine of Self-Control, ardently loved a man of rank and fashion. When she learned of his amours, her love turned first to grief, then to disgust. Stung by her abhorrence, he attempted to seduce her to conquer her pride. The purity of the heroine triumphs. She meets a man whom she esteems and afterwards marries. Many of Laura's adventures border on the improbable, but her emotions are truthfully depicted.
This was a bolder novel than appears on the surface. Long before this the wicked heroine had been banished from fiction. The leading lady must be virtuous to keep the love of the hero. Richardson laid down that law of the novel. Mary Brunton asserted the same rule for the hero, and maintained that a gentleman, handsome, noble, accomplished, could not retain the love of a pure woman, if he were not virtuous.
The book gave rise to heated discussions. Two gentlemen had a violent dispute over it: one said it ought to be burnt by the common hangman; the other, that it ought to be written in letters of gold. Beyond its ethical import, the novel has no literary value.
The kind reception given to Self-Control led the author to begin her second novel, Discipline. This was intended to show how the mind must be trained by suffering before it can hope for true enjoyment when self-control is lacking. Mary Brunton had read Miss Edgeworth's description of the Irish people with pleasure; so she planned to set forth in this novel the manners of the Scottish Highlands and of the Orkneys, where she herself had been born. But before it was finished, Waverley was published. There the Scottish Highlands stood forth on a large canvas, distinct and truthful, and Mrs. Brunton realised at once how weak her own attempts were compared with Scott's masterly work. Her interest in her book flagged, although it was published in December of that year. Some of the Highland scenes are interesting because accurately described, and her account of a mad-house in Edinburgh is said to be an exact representation of an asylum for the insane in that city.
Mrs. Brunton died before her third novel, Emmeline, was finished. Her husband, the Reverend Alexander Brunton, professor of Oriental Languages at Edinburgh University, published the fragment of it with her memoirs after her death. The aim of this novel was to show how little chance of happiness there is when a divorced woman marries her seducer. It only shows the inability of Emmeline to live down her past shame and the unhappiness which follows the married pair.
In the novels of Mrs. Opie and Mary Brunton the standard of conduct is the same as to-day. Both men and women are expected to lead upright lives, with true regard for the happiness of those about them. In Self-Control the hero refuses to fight a duel with the villain who has injured him, and forgives him with a true Christian spirit. To be sure, there are still seductions, and the world of fashion is without a heart. But conduct which the former generation would have regarded with a smile is here denominated sin, and that which they named Prudery shines forth as virtue. The problems of life which these novels discuss are the same, as we have said, which agitate the world to-day.