L'Horrible Langue allemande

Here is an example which I culled from a novel and reduced to English:
"The trunks being now ready, he DE- after kissing his mother and sisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample folds of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to lay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself, PARTED."

- Freundschaftsbezeigungen
- Dilettantenaufdringlichkeiten
- Stadtverordnetenversammlungen
These things are not words, they are alphabetical processions. And they are not rare ; one can open a German newspaper at any time and see them marching majestically across the page - and if he has any imagination, he can see the banners and hear the music too.

Wenn haber man kann nicht meinem Rede Verstehen, so werde ich ihm später dasselbe übersetz, wenn er solche Dienst verlangen wollen haben werden sollen sein hätte. (I don't know what "wollen haben werden sollen sein hätte" means, but I notice they always put it at the end of a German sentence - merely for general literary gorgeousness, I suppose).

"But when he, upon the street, the (in-satin-and-silk-covered-now-very-unconstrained-after-the-newest-fashioned-dressed) government counselors' wife met," etc., etc.
"Wenn er aber auf der Strasse der in Sammt und Seide gehüllten jetzt sehr ungenirt nach der neusten Mode gekleideten Regierungsräthin begegnet."

Intellectual food is like any other: it is pleasanter and more beneficial to take it with a spoon than with a shovel.