Directions: Choose the correct option to fill in the blanks.

Firmly persuaded that the world was evil and men unspeakably _____, she extracted any little piece of decency she could find in them with the modest pride with which a _____ extracts a rabbit from the hat.

Since she considers the world to be evil, she is also likely to regard the men living in the world to be equally wicked or malevolent. So, options (1) and (2) can be ruled out as both ‘benign’ and ‘munificent’ means kind and generous. As ‘staunch’ in (5) means strong, this can also be ruled out. Both ‘depraved’ and ‘vicious’ fit in the first blank, but it is the ‘conjurer’ who performs tricks like extracting a rabbit from the hat. Hence, (4) is the answer.