In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another. In "Self-Reliance," Emerson further develops the idea presented in this excerpt by explaining how imitation is .

the appreciation of the classics
a source of peacefulness
a form of religion
the lack of trust in oneself