“Sol Hurok, who had assembled the Kabuki company, was the most exuberant and confident impresario of any I ever met. I hardly knew him then, but later, in New York, I met him with David [Webster] and found that his stories of the past–‘Once, when I was in Paris with Ysaye, Busoni was going after dinner to accompany Melba and Chaliapin in some songs…”–however unlikely, were all true. Hurok had known everybody, and had represented half of them. He had become an institution in New York, and David told me he was once there when Hurok said, ‘Can’t you stay on a day? On Thursday I have my annual party for the critics–champagne and caviar and all that.’ David asked him why he bothered; he could hardly expect them to give him a good notice rather than a bad one merely because he gave a party for them. ‘Of course not,’ said Hurok. ‘But there are two ways of writing a bad notice.'”
The Tongs and the Bones: The Memoirs of Lord Harewood