The master grim, the lowly serf that tills his lands;
     With lordly pride the first sends forth commands,
     The second cringes like a slave.
          
                              —­Nekrasov.

Despite the unvarying success of his dramas on the stage, Ostrovsky for a long time derived little financial benefit from them.  Discouragement and overwork wrecked his health, and were undoubtedly responsible for the gloomy tone of a series of plays written in the years following 1860, of which “Sin and Sorrow Are Common to All” (1863) is a typical example.  Here the dramatist sketches a tragic incident arising from the conflict of two social classes, the petty tradesmen and the nobility.  From the coarse environment of the first emerge honest, upright natures like Krasnov; from the superficial, dawdling culture of the second come weak-willed triflers like Babayev.  The sordid plot sweeps on to its inevitable conclusion with true tragic force.

Towards the end of his life Ostrovsky gained the material prosperity that was his due.  “There was no theatre in Russia in which his plays were not acted” (Skabichevsky).  From 1874 to his death he was the president of the Society of Russian Dramatic Authors.  In 1885 he received the important post of artistic director of the Moscow government theatres; the harassing duties of the position proved too severe for his weak constitution, and he passed away in the next year.

As a dramatist, Ostrovsky is above all else a realist; no more thoroughly natural dramas than his were ever composed.  Yet as a master of realistic technique he must not be compared with Ibsen, or even with many less noted men among modern dramatists.  His plays have not the neat, concise construction that we prize to-day.  Pages of dialogue sometimes serve no purpose except to make a trifle clearer the character of the actors, or perhaps slightly to heighten the impression of commonplace reality.  Even in “Sin and Sorrow” and “A Protegee” whole passages merely illustrate the background against which the plot is set rather than help forward the action itself.  Many plays, such as “A Family Affair,” end with relatively unimportant pieces of dialogue.  Of others we are left to guess even the conclusion of the main action:  will Nadya in “A Protegee” submit to her degrading fate, or will she seek refuge in the pond?

Ostrovsky rarely uses the drama to treat of great moral or social problems.  He is not a revolutionary thinker or an opponent of existing society; his ideal, like that of his predecessor Gogol, is of honesty, kindliness, generosity, and loyalty in a broad, general way to the traditions of the past.  He attacks serfdom not as an isolated leader of a forlorn hope, but as an adherent of a great party of moderate reformers.