Susan Langstaff Mitchell was an essayist and poet. Born in Carrickon- Shannon, Co. Leitrim, she spent much of her childhood in Dublin, where she lived with her aunts—her own family home having broken up following the death of her father. She was educated at Morehampton House School and took the women's examinations at Trinity College Dublin with honours; she later moved to Sligo where, for a short period, she helped her sisters to run a school. In spite of her Protestant background, she became an ardent supporter of Home Rule and later a member of Sinn Féin and a founder member of the United Irishwomen. She was on friendly terms with W. B. Yeats and later stayed with his family in London and had her portrait painted by his father. It was George Russell who was to prove a more enduring influence on the development of her writing career, however: she became a close friend of his after being appointed to the role of subeditor at the Irish Homestead in 1901. Her two best-known poetry collections—both of which were reprinted—appeared first in 1906 and 1908 respectively, and each presented a very different picture of her artistic vision: The Living Chalice and Other Poems contained lyrics with spiritual themes and Aids to the Immortality of Certain Persons in Ireland exhibited her gift for satire, often in the form of longer narrative poems. A third collection, Frankincense and Myrrh, appeared in 1912. She frequently satirised her friends and neither Yeats nor Æ escaped her barbed wit, though the chief recipient of her criticism was novelist George Moore. In 1921 Æ appointed her assistant editor of the Irish Statesman, to which she contributed numerous pieces of journalism.