Read the below passage and answer the questions:
I had a peculiar method of wandering without very much pain along the stormy path of life, although, in a physical as well as in a moral sense, I wandered almost barefoot, - I hoped, hoped from day to day; in the morning my hopes rested on evening, in the evening on the morning; in the autumn upon the spring, in spring upon the autumn; from this year to the next, and thus amid mere hopes, I had passed through nearly thirty years of my life, without, of all my privations, painfully perceiving the want of anything but whole boots. Nevertheless, I consoled myself easily for this out of doors in the open air, but in a drawing-room it always gave me an uneasy manner to have to turn the heels, as being the part least torn, to the front. Much more oppressive was it to me, truly, that I could in the abodes of misery only console with kind words.
I comforted myself, like a thousand others, by a hopeful glance upon the rolling wheel of fortune, and with the philosophical remark, "When the time comes, comes the counsel".
As a poor assistant to a country clergyman with a narrow income and meagre table, morally becoming mouldy in the company of the scolding housekeeper, of the willingly fuddled clergyman, of a foolish young gentleman and the daughters of the house, who, with high shoulders and turned-in toes, went from morning to night paying visits, I felt a peculiarly strange emotion of tenderness and joy as one of my acquaintance informed me by writing, that my uncle, the Merchant P -- in Stockholm, to me personally unknown, now lay dying, and in a paroxysm of kindred affection had inquired after his good-for-nothing nephew.
For the narrator, the perpetual postponement of the fulfilment of hope hinged on:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → a pair of boots
The narrator says that he hoped from day to day, from season to season and from year to year, and so passed nearly thirty years "without ... perceiving the want of anything but whole boots". The one thing whose arrival he kept putting off to the next morning, the next spring, the next year was a sound pair of boots; his torn boots are the constant reminder of that postponed hope.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: a painting — Incorrect. Not mentioned: the passage speaks of no painting at all.
Option 3: a new coat — Incorrect. Contradicted: the narrator says he felt the want of nothing but whole boots; clothes such as a coat are never mentioned as a need.
Option 4: autumn — Incorrect. Misread: autumn is only one of the seasons across which his hopes were carried over ("in the autumn upon the spring"); it is a point in time, not the object of his hope.