la nature humaine

"An objection may perhaps be apprehended from the more delicate, that the dish is too common and vulgar; for what else is the subject of all the romances, novels, plays, and poems, with which the stalls abound? Many exquisite viands might be rejected by the epicure, if it was sufficient cause for his condemning of them as common and vulgar, that something was to be found in the most paltry alleys under the same name. In reality, true nature is as difficult to be met with in authors as the Bayonne ham, or Bologna sausage, is to be found in the shops"

Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, chapitre 1, 1749.