were directly influenced by his knowledge of Victorian theatre, "with all its theatrics and high emotions". The mysticism of the occult and the supernatural that Stoker expounds upon in The Jewel of Seven Stars, Wynne argues, was inspired by the stage "magic" and innovations in staging that allowed for illusions to be performed in the theatre: "Stoker in his fiction…[uses] illusion in the service of the supernatural". In addition to being influenced by his relationship with Irving and the theatre, Stoker's style was also influenced by his friendship with poet Walt Whitman. According to Perry, Stoker admired the poet and often emulated his style in personal letters to Whitman, an emulation that would later appear in Stoker's novels. Stoker's lengthy, eloquent descriptions possess a poetic quality, and Perry argues that his characters "[speak] with a sense of rhythm, parallelism, and balance that is characteristic of Whitman". Themes Old versus New A major concern in The Jewel of Seven Stars is the tension between the Old World and the New in terms of progress. The late nineteenth century was a time of invention and modernization, and the novel constantly questions the power of the past in comparison to these modern technological and scientific innovations. Senf argues that "Stoker was aware of the scientific and cultural developments that were taking place around the turn of the century, that he was fascinated with technological developments…Stoker sometimes saw the future as full of infinite possibilities for improvement, [and] sometimes as totally at the mercy of primitive forces". This is demonstrated in the appropriately titled chapter, "Powers—Old and New", in which Malcolm considers the consequences of Tera's resurrection on existing British beliefs. The direction of his thoughts in this chapter, which was notably deleted from the 1912 edition, seems to indicate that ancient Egyptian society was more progressive than nineteenth-century England, both spiritually and scientifically: "The whole possibility of the Great Experiment to which we were now pledged was based on the reality of the existence of the Old Forces which seemed to be coming in contact with the New Civilisation…If there were truth at all in the belief of Ancient Egypt then their Gods had real existence, real power, real force…If then the Old Gods held their forces, wherein was the supremacy of the new?” Malcolm realizes in this passage that the success of Tera's resurrection will shake the fundamental Christian belief of monotheism