Martinsburg weekly independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1873-1875, 1874-08-29
THE INDIANAPOLIS TRAGEDY
Mr.. Harding's Obituary of His
Daughter

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DIED.
HARDING AT the residence of her faith
er, No. 20 Pratt street, on Wednesday
last, Miss Flora K. Harding, daughter Of
George G. Harding, aged 10.
A noble life, full of promise, has
gone out in shame. She loved
much and she suffered much. Her
sorrowful soul, released from earth
burdens, has gone to meet its God,
| to lay before him the cruel wrongs
for which earth has no redress
Poor, fond heart ill-starred from
birth, your tempestuous beatings
are stilled, your restless longings
will trouble no more. Hers was
joyless childhood, warped and dis
torted by relentless circumstances.
Her womanhoOd is blasted in the
bud. Despite unfortunate traits
and unhappy moods, in which she
seemed TO move and act as ifunder
some weird spell, her underlying
nature was noble, generous, unset
fish, self-sacrificing, with an honest
pride which would scorn to do q
mean action. The unhappy cir
cumstances attending her child.
hood had impressed her nature
with an. ineffaceable tinge of mel
ancholy. She vas respondent al
ways, rather than sanguine. "Pa-
pa" she said to me once, when a
cherished desire was thwarted,
and / was endeavuring to console
her, "don'C distress yourself about
me. My entire life has been q
disappointment" Notwithstand-
ing the sOmbre tints in her nature,
she was almost unn ,turally viva
clous. But even in her most cherry
moments an apparent conscious
ness of the falseness and hollow
ness of earthly things could be
noted. Her deepest and profound
est feeling, the one when was ever
present and was never Overshad-
owed by doubts or obscured by less
worthy sentiments, was love for
her unhappy father. This love had
taken root in her infantile mind lat
an age when impressions are easily
effaced, but it grew without nur-
ture, and seemed to strike deeper
its roots and grow more luxuriant
in leaf and bloom, the more it was
deprived of ligh, and air. 1t sur
vived absence, apparent neglect,
hostile influences, and so soon as
she was of age she came to the ia
Their whose love she had never
doubted.
In her religious nature she was
peculia.. She had the profoundest
veneration for Deity, and sublime
confidence in His business, but size
had no sympathy with creeds, or
the forms OF religion. She believed
in the law OF compensation, and
having known but little save I'M
happiness, she believed that the
future, either on earth or Heaven.
had recompense in store for her
She often TESTED on The subject of
suicide, and on one occasion, being
reproved, and told that God frown-
ed upon self-murder, she said,
Papa, / am not afraid of God"
There were few brighter intel
lects t an Flora's, and her future
was full of promise. She had re-
markable felicitous command of
language, and was exceedingly
versatile. While she knew no, h.
ing of politics, her familiarity with
reconcile subjects was wonderful.
In reasoning she Was was subtle,
and, and in thought she was pow
erful and searching. She had de-
termined on literature as a profes
sion, and had she lived, would
have made her mark in the world
ofletters.
The cruelest reflection in this
hour of bltterest agony is that her
father might have been less stern
and more sympathetic in his inter-
course with her, though he could
never have loved her more. With
two such natures an eStrangement
is apt to raise up an invisible but
impossible barrier, land while there
;"s,., be no unssnoken word of un-
kindness, the reserve is infinitely
more cruel and cutting than words
could be. The unhappy secret
the first withholdings of conf
dence-caused such a feeling. and
this was only broken down the
night before her death; when on
her fathers breast, with her arms
about his neck, in heart broken
sobs, she told him the dreadful
story, and pleaded for his forgive
ness, not so much for her sin as
for the want Of confidence in him.
All was forgiven, and father and
daughter once more reconciled. -
Even then she had determined on
suicide, aad that. last, heartbreak-
ing interview, 20 sweet to remem-
Der, and ye. sad, must be invest
ed with ali ,hc sanctity Of DEATH