From Life on the Mississippi a
I still keep in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad expanse of the river was
turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous; in one
place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water, in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings, that were as many-tinted as
an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines, ever so delicately traced;
the shore on our left was densely wooded, and the sombre shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that
shone like silver, and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed
splendor that was flowing from the sun.
The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home. But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from notinig
the glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought upon the river's face; another day came lvhen I ceased altogether
to note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should have looked upon it without rapture, and should have commented upon it,
inwardly, after this fashion: This sun means that we are going to have wind to-morrow, that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks
to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching
out like that those tumbling "bolls" show a dissolving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder are a
warning that the troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously,...
(from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain)
Which statement best conveys how the author's viewpoint changes in the passage?