Gideon Planish by Sinclair Lewis

Professor Gideon Planish was not satisfied with the workings of Providence, at the beginning of this college year of 1921-22. He was not satisfied with Teckla Schaum. Oh, she admired him, in her shallow womanly way, but she did not understand the complications of a statesman's career, did not even understand the problem of his beard--how he looked rustic if he had one, and yet if he took it off now, everybody would laugh.

She couldn't tell him how to jump from college to the Senate chamber without going through a lot of sticky handshaking. She actually thought he might go on teaching, and yet she didn't see how embarrassing it was for him to have, as rival star in his department, a new English professor who had taken the advantage of actually being English.