Excerpt from his lecture "The Meaning of Hawthorne's Women" in which Richard Millington considers the parallel between Hawthorne's experiences and the gender relations he depicts between Phoebe and Holgrave

"I might add that one could infer some support for Jehlen's idea by thinking about The House of the Seven Gables, the novel I haven't so far mentioned. Here we might notice that in the book he thought closest to his actual life and sensibility, and most engaged in working out a way for men and women to live together in the calmer light of everyday life, the gender drama is much more conventional: it's Holgrave who needs anchoring in Phoebe's efficacious goodness, and Phoebe who needs complicating via exposure to his more free-ranging and critical mind."