Hello guys I am trying to remove the elements and contents before a link inside a div when a user clicks a button. What is the best way to do it??

<div id="dialog" class="window">  

         //will be inserted a <select> element and few text here 
         //but I want to clear them after the user click a button

    <a href="#" class="close">Close it</a>  // I want to keep this <a> link.    

    </div>  

My Jquery

$('.model').click(function(e) {  

   $("#dialog").empty();  //I can't use this because <a> will be deleted. Any better ideas?         

});

Thanks for the reply...