Two Ways of Seeing a River by Mark Twain

Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri, and died in Connecticut in 1910.  In 1909 Mark Twain made this comment: “I came in with Halley's Comet, It is coming again next year. The Almighty has said, no doubt, 'Now there are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together. '” He died on April 21, 1910 one day after the comet had once again reached its perihelion. He is best known for his novels ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ (1876) and ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ (1885).

In 1883, Mark Twain the American writer, humorist and essayist wrote an autobiography titled 'Life on the Mississippi'. This is an excerpt from that book called ‘Two Ways of Seeing a River’. It is about the difference in seeing something for the first time that captivates and enchants us and then losing that charming view of it due to familiarity and a deeper understanding of its essence. He asks the question, do you gain or lose by this insight?