amigo mio

Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker on the break between Herman Melville and Evert Duyckinck in early 1852: 

"Only a dramatic personal confrontation just at this time, a meeting in which Duyckinck told Melville that he could not recommend the work to any publisher, seems adequate to account for the anger Melville displayed toward his friend in what he inserted into his manuscript a week or so into January."

"... Duyckinck's blunt condemnation of Pierre is the most likely cause of Melville's apparent decision not even to try to find another publisher for his manuscript."
(Reading Melville's Pierre 147)

C.  "Amigo Mio!  Didn't you desert me on the eve of a snow storm, like many another friend of so honest mouthing!  And is a touch of poetry a bad companion in difficulty and trial?  Never a bit; it was the boon of a God — Wisdom was ever feminine."

I. F.  "Phew!  The fit is on!  Sorry I said a word!   (April 1852)

"I. F." stands for "Imaginary Friend," later in this same installment also called "friend critic."   Just now the Captain is feeling abandoned, deserted again by a friend

"on the eve of a snowstorm."