“Life is made up of marble and mud.”
  Many could easily pass over this quote, taken from page 42, as rather insignificant and not entirely meaningful or descriptive.  Yet, this very quotation is what felt closest to be the core of the theme of The House of the Seven Gables.
Each character and each symbol used in the little nooks and crannies of the novel are a mixture of marble and mud.
  To start from the beginning, the reverent Colonel himself, who was the head of the Pyncheon lineage, was a very respected and high-class man.  The Colonel was a very stately Puritan, yet he committed a great sin in the building of the great house that the novel is based upon.  The great Puritan’s wanting and greed in the receipt of the land to build his house upon led to the destruction of another person.  The Colonel was an upstanding citizen, a Puritan, and well looked upon by the general community, which I find symbolic of the marble in his person.  In contrast, though, his greed and rigidity of purpose are the mud that covers the main part of good in the Colonel Pyncheon.
  Subsequently, we can look at the character of Matthew Maule, the man accused of witchery who was hung for the afore-mentioned crime.  Matthew Maule is said to be an obscure man, but he had made his home through his own toil and sweat, This shows his will to work and also fight for what he wants and believes is rightfully his, giving his character a marble core.  This marble core creates a respect for the man.  Yet his reputation is tarnished, and consequently his life is taken, due to the accusations of the insatiable Colonel.  Those accusations and his hanging afterwards, envelop his character in an unpleasant exterior of mud.
  Directly, we will encounter Hepzibah Pyncheon.  She is the last person to date in the novel, still residing in the House of the Seven Gables.  Miss Hepzibah, as she is almost mockingly called, is a recluse in her home, destitute to the point that she must open a shop in the no longer reputable house.  A black mood and a steady scowl define Miss Hepzibah, which interestingly, were also distinct features of her ancestor, the Colonel.  Yet she has a tender heart and a sensitive nature that is not easily carried across the habitual gloomy expression she normally wears.  This vulnerable heart hidden behind a disagreeable countenance is comparable to marble hidden behind mud.
  Phoebe Pyncheon isn’t a direct comparison of marble versus mud, but there are many contrasts in the girl’s character.  She brings an innocence and prettiness into the drab and guilt-filled house, which is a contrast in itself between the girl and the house she comes to reside in.  But the girl in herself is a group of oxymoron.  The innocence that embodies her comes from a lack of intellect and her unwillingness to face unpleasant truths.  As is stated in the Cliffs Notes for this novel, Phoebe is a motherly child, a sisterly bride and an innocent but tempting virgin.  The personality descriptions used show a regularity of contradiction in the girl, giving a marble/mud feel to her character.
  Holgrave, who rooms in a vacant gable of the great house, is also a character that attempts, unsuccessfully, to bring some light to the darkness of the house.  Holgrave himself has a cheery countenance that shines like marble in sunlight, yet he is hereditarily a Maule, alluding to a darkness of witchcraft.  This gives the reader a black perspective of the young man, ugly mud covering the brightness that Holgrave could represent.
  Now we view the character of Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon.  The reigning high-class Pyncheon, the Judge is well looked upon by the general populace and is seen to have a sunny personality.  But the further one reads, they see that the Judge is an evil man, who tortures and uses cruelty to gain what he wants.  The Judge appears to have a good character, alluding to an inner beauty, or marble core.  Yet his true wickedness coats his being with an extremely thick plaster of mud.
  Clifford, who is a dreamer and a pure aesthete, is only known in the novel after coming home from 30 years of imprisonment.  It can be assumed that before these years his reverie and love of beauty made him a rather pleasant person, but the years of prison made him melancholy and generally a “lost cause”.  Clifford’s inner love of beauty and imagination is suffocated by the anguish covering all chances of an optimistic personality.
  Hawthorne also uses a few very important symbols in the House of the Seven Gables.  These symbols also have the characteristics to give them a contrast of marble versus mud.
  The house itself, being an enormously significant symbol throughout the story, holds the burden of the entire lineage of Pyncheons.  Being a descriptive part of the people who have made this house, it is generally a gloomy and eerie home, somewhat ghosted by the Pyncheons of the past.  The furniture resembles some Pyncheons, and many other bits and pieces of the house are symbolic of people that are or were involved with it.  Being that the Pyncheons themselves had nothing but sorrow and grief from generation to generation, the house itself has grown to appear ugly and dark.  Yet Alice’s posies, the remnants of a garden in the rear of the house, and the constant reminder that the sun does shine into the house, lends a glint of shining marble under the thick surface coverage of mud.
  Also the great portrait of the Colonel is referred to numerous times throughout the novel.  In a good aspect, Hepzibah feels a reverence for the portrait and the portrait does end up containing the now worthless deed that the Pyncheons had searched for decades to find.  But the thick covering of ugliness in the symbol hides most of the marble.  The portrait is symbolic of the ghosts within the house and the sheer greed of the Pyncheons. 
Lastly, Maule’s well is the object that best follows the theme of marble versus mud.  Matthew Maule built his home by a sweet spring and used it for his well.  Yet when the Colonel had finished building his ornate home, the well was said to give only foul and undrinkable water.  This is emblematic of something pure and beautiful, the marble references, being lost to become something ugly and filthy like a heap of mud.
Once one has finished with the novel, they can piece together the full meaning by not only reading everything and not missing a word, but also by reading between the lines to see the hidden yet vastly important themes behind each person, symbol, or occurrence.