The Calligrapher — Lù Jiǎnzhī 陆柬之

Tang calligrapher and nephew of Yu Shinan; his running-script 'Essay on Literature' survives

Tang calligrapher (), master of running script — known for 《文赋》. Tang dynasty

Cultural Story

怊 is the sad without a cause, the empty ache. 莊子 writes of a man 怊乎 like a babe lost from its mother, and the word kept that orphaned feel — sorrow as a state of having no hand to hold, not the pain of a thing taken, only the absence where one should be.

Common words & phrases

• 怊怅 sad · disconsolate
• 怊怊 sad · anxious
• 怊惕 anxious · alarmed

Read the story behind the character

怊怅 survives in refined prose and the quoting of 莊子; you will not say it over coffee. The babe is a metaphor now; the absence is common. We still feel the causeless sad, and the character waits in its one phrase to name it precisely, a word too exact for daily speech.