How to isolate text nodes in jQuery?

How to isolate text nodes in jQuery?

Hi,
Suppose I have a HTML element that looks like this.
<div>This is <span>a text node</span>.  There are more <span>letters in this one.</span>  Test up.</div>

I wish to identify and isolate "This", "is", ".", "There", "are", "more", "Test", and "up." as text nodes.

Is there a way to do this through jQuery, either natively or through a jQuery plugin? 

Using the .contents() method, I get an array of several texts, but they're not completely isolated.
<script type="text/javascript">
            $(document).ready(function(){
                var myContent = $("div").contents().filter(function() { return this.nodeType == 3; });
                console.log(myContent);
            });
</script>

will give me this in myContent:
[<TextNode textContent="This is ">, <TextNode textContent=". There are more ">, <TextNode textContent=" Test up.">]

Thanks for reading.