Definition of "warm the cockles of someone's heart"

Here a fresh-looking barmaid serves them each with a glass of early purl as they stand before the fire, coachman and guard exchanging business remarks. The purl warms the cockles of Tom's heart and makes him cough.

1857, [Thomas Hughes], “The Stage Coach”, in Tom Brown’s School Days. […], Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan & Co., part I, page 85

Well, Aby; here I am, as large as life, but as cold as death. Ugh; what an affair that coach is! Fanny, my best of darlings, give me a drop of something that's best for warming the cockles of an old man's heart.

1859 August 4 – 1860 March 31 (date written), Anthony Trollope, “The Kanturk Hotel, South Main Street, Cork”, in Castle Richmond. […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 10 May 1860, page 103

My sandwiches had gone the way of all good sandwiches, and no wine remained to warm the cockles of my heart, for my flask had long been emptied.

1871, May Fly [pseudonym; H. F. Manley], A Continental Tour, together with Notes and Anecdotes of Diplomatic Life, London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.; Wellington, Somerset: Richard Corner, page 81

Novv, although he ſays in his Preface, that he vvould not much boaſt of convincing the vvorld, hovv much I vvas miſtaken in vvhat I undertook; yet, I am confident of it, that this Contrivance of his did invvardly as much rejoyce the Cockles of his heart, as he phanſies, that vvhat I vvrit did ſometimes much tickle my Spleen.This is the earliest attestation of the term cockles of [someone’s] heart noted in the Oxford English Dictionary.]

, Some Observations upon the Answer to an Enquiry into the Grounds & Occasions of the Contemt of the Clergy: , published 1672, pages 26–27

"You mean that great possessions warm the cockles of your heart," I said; "that's because you're all soul. As for me, I must warm my hands in the tea-cozy before I can carve the eggs."

1902 October, E[dith] Nesbit, “The Invaders”, in The Red House, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, page 210

"Well, they may laugh at us up here for our old-fashioned notions of loyalty, discipline and obedience, but when one finds it I must say it warms the cockles of the heart. Don't you agree with me, Hugh? I say it warms the cockles of the heart." / "Oh, very much so," Kilwhillie agreed. The cockles of his own heart were in a responsive condition to warmth that evening […]

1941, Compton Mackenzie, “The Cave of the Calf”, in The Monarch of the Glen (Guild Books; number C5), Stockholm, Sweden: [F]or the British Publishers Guild by AB Ljus Förlag, published 1945, page 125

"Surname?" / "Blagodarev." / A handy name, easy to get hold of, and the ready way he gave it warmed the cockles of the heart.

1989, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, chapter 25, in H[arry] T[aylor] Willetts, transl., August 1914 (The Red Wheel: A Narrative in Discrete Periods of Time), 1st paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, published 2014, page 214