All the time, he hoped they would understand that his arrogance masked only shyness—or did he hope that it was his shyness which masked arrogance? He did not know. Who could presume to know? The one quality holds much of the other. Both refuse to come forward and share.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "All the time, he hoped they would understand that his arrogance masked only shyness—or did he hope that it was his shyness which masked arrogance? He did not know. Who could presume to know? The one quality holds much of the other. Both refuse to come forward and share." in the context of "Brian Aldiss, in “A Kind of Artistry” (originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October 1962)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.