What does Twain mean when he says "the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river"? Show another instance.in Life on the Mississippi

By the time of your quote,
learning-to-be-a-steamboat-pilot Twain has realized that he has lost his romanticized
vision of what becoming a pilot means. Before starting that process, Twain had imagined
that there would be fine adventures and great prestige in piloting one of the great
Mississippi steamboats. He had not realized the tremendous amount of work and learning
that he was undertaking when he became Bixby's pupil, and he could not know that the
learning process would destroy the appreciation of the river's beauty that had been part
of the original attraction.

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All the value any feature of it (the river) had
for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe
piloting of a steamboat.