Carpe Diem brush lettering

You will laugh when I tell you Brother Anselm has finally let me near the good brushes. For six winters I have ruled lines and mixed lamp black with gum for the others, and yesterday the abbot stood behind my stool while I laid down a capital C for the psalter. My hand shook so badly the first stroke came out fat as a thumb. Anselm did not scold. He only said the ink knows when you are afraid, and it will tell the reader too.

Since then I have been practising on the backs of spoiled vellum, and I have learnt that the thick stroke must be pressed on the way down and lifted before the foot, or the letter sits like a stone in the field. The word beside it, the one he had me write under the first, slides off to the left as if it wants to be somewhere else. Anselm says that is the whole point. Every page should lean a little towards the door.

The old roll he keeps in the chest says the same thing in Latin, though nobody reads it now except him. Seize the day, it says, and the brothers have always taken it to mean hurry through matins. Anselm says it means the opposite. Seize it the way you would a rope on a wet deck, firmly and without looking down.

I have finished the page. It is hanging to dry above the cold hearth, and when the bell rings I will go and look at it once more before anyone else does. I hope you are well. Do not let Father sell the orchard until I am home.

Yours in ink, Thomas