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From Robert Louis Stevenson's essay *El Dorado* (1881). Select the word that fits the blank. "There is always a new horizon for onward-looking men, and although we dwell on a small planet, immersed in petty business and not enduring beyond a brief period of years, we are so constituted that our hopes are ______, like stars, and the term of hoping is prolonged until the term of life."

Aaccessible
Bextinguished
Cinaccessible
Darbitrary
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: C. inaccessible
Stevenson's simile: *like stars*. Stars are visible but unreachable. The blank must match this — *visible but never grasped*. "Inaccessible" fits exactly. - "Accessible" reverses the simile (stars are *not* accessible). - "Extinguished" introduces an unrelated quality. - "Arbitrary" doesn't fit the *like stars* analogy.
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