From countless hours of poring over Lovecraft, his usage of semicolons has been found to be somewhat odd. At times, he'll place them where a comma would usually be seen; sort of like this. For example,
Dr. Muñoz I had never heard, save for certain sounds as of some gasoline-driven mechanism; since his step was soft and gentle.
Mrs. Herrero crossed herself when she looked at him, and gave him up unreservedly to me; not even letting her son Esteban continue to run errands for him.
After that I paid him frequent overcoated calls; listening while he told of secret researches and almost ghastly results, and trembling a bit when I examined the unconventional and astonishingly ancient volumes on his shelves.
The waves from that thing are waking a thousand sleeping senses in us; senses which we inherit from aeons of evolution from the state of detached electrons to the state of organic humanity.
The first three examples come from Cool Air. The final's from From Beyond.
Lovecraft was a weird man, so it's not surprising that he'd have a weird style. However, with that being said, is this usage "correct"? Could someone be flagged as wrong for emulating it? And if not, why isn't it seen more often?