The problem isn't so much the words themselves, but the structure. No one really writes these kind of lengthy comma-peppered sentences like this today:

As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.

A more modern way to write that would be something like:

Mud overflowed the streets, as if the waters had newly retired from the face of the earth. Would it not be wonderful to meet a Triceratops, forty feet long or so, waddling like a giant lizard up Holborn Hill.

I don't know what reasonable expectations would be for English college majors, but to claim that anyone having trouble understanding this text "can't read" seems rather much.