Abroad And A-Loose: Connections

An incidental turn of phrase links two texts in a reader's mind, at least it does in mine. I am sure that there is no direct connection between these passages in two different works except in one (my) reader's mind:

"...Conan and Valeria are abroad and a-loose."

-Conan: Blood Of The Serpent, 30.

"WE ARE ABROAD AND LOOSE, AND WILL NOT BE PUT BACK."

-James Blish, Black Easter IN Blish, After Such Knowledge (London, 1991), pp. 319-425 AT 17, p. 424.

The first is a thought in the mind of Conan the Cimmerian in the Hyborian Age whereas the second is an announcement by a demon claiming victory in Armageddon in the twentieth century. This thought and this announcement occur in two different fantasy novels. That is the only real connection between them. 

A philosophy lecturer told students, including me, that one of his children had suggested that there is always a connection between any two things that we can think of, even if that connection is only that we are thinking about those two things - the kind of connection that only a philosopher would think of. An Economics undergraduate wondered whether there is anything that everything has in common. He then dismissed that speculation as a proto-thought but, in fact, he was on the brink of the first category of Hegelian philosophy: Being.

The human mind makes connections. The concept, "red," connects everything red. We connect an indefinitely large number of written works by labelling them "fantasy" or "science fiction" or, more generally, "fiction" or "literature."

Conan and Valeria abroad and a-loose and demons abroad and loose have in common that they are dangerous and that we enjoy reading about them. With that thought, our minds are (maybe) inspired to make an indefinite number of other connections. We contemplate the universe and hypothesize a multiverse.