VIII. The following are excerpts from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion.
If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the
Ring would have been_(43)_and used against Sauron; he would not have been
_(44)_but enslaved, and Barad-Diir would not have been destroyed but
occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion
and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own
researches into Ring-lore, and__(45)__ he would have made a Great Ring of his
own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-earth. In that conflict
both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and __(46) __: they would not long
have survived even as slaves.
【題組】45.
(A) ever since
(B) before long
(C) up to now
(D) from time to time