Between 1862 and about 1868, Dodgson's diaries are littered with expressions of guilt and prayers to God to help him resist sin. The nature of this sense of guilt has not yet been satisfactorily explained, though there are hints about possible reasons. A single diary-entry from 1864 stipulates an 'event' that has recently occurred that might bring about a return to 'happier times', and an end of sin. The 'event' is not described or explained.

Potentially more revealingly, all the material from Dodgson's diaries that is now missing or destroyed belongs to a similar time-period, and at the same time Dodgson was confiding these feelings of guilt to his diary he was also writing and publishing the only love poetry he is on record as writing.

Until Leach drew attention to this curious episode in her book very little attention had been paid to this curious episode and so far no certain explanation for it has been forthcoming.