That ancestor is Cass Mastern.
This character counters the "mad poet William Blake" by saying "Kate and Nan were exactly alike to begin with" during a scene where he, having "drowned in the West," discovered the dream that "all life is but the dark heave of blood." He proposed to one of his loves after stuck with her in a shack during a thunderstorm two days before she went boarding school, and his uncompleted PhD thesis was on an ancestor who tried to track down the slave Phebe after she was sold by Annabelle Trice. That ancestor is Cass Mastern. He indulges in the (*) "Great Sleep" and believes in the Great Twitch and thought his father was The Scholarly Attorney, buts it's really Judge Irwin. He works for a man who had Sadie Burke as a mistress but is killed by Adam Stanton. For 10 points, name this aide to Willie Stark, the narrator of All the King's Men. [Shantanu]
This character counters the "mad poet William Blake" by saying "Kate and Nan were exactly alike to begin with" during a scene where he, having "drowned in the West," discovered the dream that "all life is but the dark heave of blood."
{Jack Burden} [accept either name]