It seems that Sebald is describing a style of writing that affects the reader with an almost physical sensation of lifting. We know well enough that the printed word is materially bound to the earth. But we also know that language itself, especially poetic language, can aim at sublimity. It is as if the way certain sublime writers combine words in relation points us beyond the page, acknowledges some higher realm, provokes a desire to reach elsewhere, providing a momentum from the written ambition to the reader’s own sensation.